


Just For Me

by Secretmonkey



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 269,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretmonkey/pseuds/Secretmonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy attempts to move on with Reagan.  But after two months of dating, she still hasn't told Karma about the new girl in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There are days when Amy wishes she’d just stayed in bed.  A box of donuts, a documentary on Netflix, a blanket to pull up over her head and hide under.  She’d had more of those days during what Shane refers to as her “Karma phase” than she has recently, but there are still days…

Days like today.

She’d known this was going to be one of those days from the moment her phone buzzed on her way to lunch.  From the second she’d read the text from Reagan.

_Party at Shane’s.  This weekend.  Please?_

Amy knows she’s going to cave.  Hell, she’s not even sure why she’s going to fight it, except on general principle.  She remembers all too well - and Lauren and Shane won’t let her forget - how Karma led her around by the nose all those weeks they were faking it.  But she knows Reagan’s different.  She never asks for anything, she’ll happily do whatever Amy wants, particularly if it involves making out (which, Amy knows, it usually does).

So, when Reagan does ask for something, Amy gives in.  Sometimes without even fighting, though then she doesn't get the eyebrow and the little lip bite and the inevitable making out that those two always lead to.

And as she slipped her phone back into her pocket and settled down next to Karma at their usual table out back of the school, nearly dropping her tray in the process, she sighed.  She’s going to give in.  But as she sees Shane making a beeline for their  table, she knows it isn’t going to be that simple.  Because, she knows, it just never is.

So it doesn’t come as any real surprise to her that Shane is the one to out her, yet again.  It’s something he seems to have a knack for.

And it’s yet another reason to wish she’d stayed in bed.

She knows what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth and as he slides down onto the bench across from her and Karma, Amy’s already answering the question he hasn’t yet asked.

“No,” she says, shaking her head emphatically.  “No way.”

Shane grins, not dissuaded in the least.  “She told you?”

Amy pokes her fork into her mashed potatoes and fixes Shane with the most withering _duh, dumbass_ look she can muster.  “Of course,” she says.  “You may be her new BFF -”

“ _G_ BF,” Shane corrects, the grin still plastered on his face.

“Whatever,” Amy says, though even Karma - sitting there confused, lost, and shocked by how quickly this conversation has passed her by is able to pick up on the _does it really fucking matter_ subtext.  “You may be her new GBF, but I’m still… me.”  

Shane chuckles.  “I should have figured,” he says.  But then the grin grows bigger and he arches an eyebrow.    “Or maybe I did?  Maybe I knew she’d tell you?  And maybe I knew she’d be able to talk you into it?”  He leans his elbows on the table, tilting his head toward her conspiratorially.  “I mean, I may only be the GBF,” he says.  “But she’s still… her.”

Amy lets out a throaty chuckle and blushes slightly.  Not for the first time she wonders why she ever tells Shane anything.  Ever since she’d mentioned that Reagan had “convinced” her to go back to the underground club by using her “lesbian wiles” (Shane’s term, not hers), he’s been searching for a way to use that against her.  To get her to do something she wouldn’t normally do.

Like a party.  At his house.

Because, Amy thinks, we all know how well that went _last_ time.  

And Karma looks between the two of them, watches them having a conversation that seems like something out of a World War II codebook to her, and feels confused.  Left out.  

And she doesn’t like it.

But before she can chime in, Amy’s speaking again.  “She tried, Shane.  Really she did.”  It’s a lie.  Reagan really trying would have involved more than a texted ‘please’.  There’d have been donuts.  And kisses.  And, lately, increasing amounts of bare skin.

Amy blushes again at the thought.

“But,” she says, pushing away  thoughts of Regan and her lips and that thing she’s been doing lately with her tongue. “It isn’t happening.  Not this weekend or next weekend or any weekend that starts in week and ends in… end.”  

That sounded so much cooler in her head.

“Come on, Amy.”  He’s treading dangerously close to whining and, no matter what others may think, Shane hates whining.  Almost as much as he hates begging.  “It’s the perfect time.  My parents are gone for the weekend, I haven’t had a party in almost a month, she’s got the whole weekend off…”  He tilts his head again, fixes her with the closest thing he’s got to puppy dog eyes.  “This is the perfect time for Reamy to make their public debut.”

Amy sighs and fidgets with her fork.  She knows she’s going to give in, hell, Shane knows it.  But she wanted to put up a better fight. She’s about to cave when Karma, sensing this might be the only opening she gets, blurts her way into the conversation.

‘What’s a Reamy?”

And it’s as if Amy had forgotten she was even there and, in truth, it wouldn’t be the first time Karma has slipped her mind in recent weeks. But now she remembers.  Remembers that Karma’s been sitting there listening to the entire conversation.  Remembers that she and Karma are probably way overdue for a talk about the developments in Amy’s life.  Remembers that Karma doesn’t know and Shane doesn’t know that Karma doesn’t know…

And oh, _fuck_ , this is going to end badly.

Shane rolls his eyes and shakes his head at Karma.  “Seriously?” he asks, barely able to hide the annoyance in his voice.  Since Karma and Liam became official, he’s found himself forced to tolerate her presence even more than usual and, with every passing day, he’s found it harder and harder to bite his tongue around her.

Karma looks between them again.  She notices the slightly terrified look in Amy’s eyes and wonders, briefly, why her best friend is scared. And why, for the first time in their friendship, she doesn’t know something about what Amy’s feeling.

OK.  Maybe not for the _first_ time.  

“Sorry, Shane,” she says.  “I guess we’re not all as ‘in-the-know’ as you.”

Shane resists, barely, the urge to explain to Karma all things she doesn’t know, but focuses instead on the question before him.  “Reamy,” he says again, simply.  “Reagan.  Amy.”  He holds his hands out separately as he speaks, then brings them together.  “Reamy.”  He can’t resist one little jab.  “You know, like Karmy.  Only with twice the lesbians.”

Yup, Amy thinks, definitely one of those days.

She can feel Karma’s eyes on  her without looking.  And, just like before with Shane, she knows what Karma’s going to say before she even speaks.

“Amy?”  Karma’s voice is quiet, which only makes Amy’s insides twist a little bit more.  “Who’s Reagan?”

Amy stares straight ahead, eyes locked on Shane, and she sees the realization wash over his face.  

“Shit,” he mutters.  “You didn’t… I thought…”  He drops his eyes to the table as he fully comprehends what he just did.  And then, suddenly, his head snaps up and he looks off into the distance.  “What?  Was that Liam?  I think it was!”  He jumps to his feet, consciously avoiding looking at Amy because, well, because he doesn’t want to die right this second.  “Coming, Liam!”  And he’s off, sprinting across the quad and Amy muses, briefly, that she’s never seen him move quite so fast.

“Amy?”

And yet again Amy is reminded that Karma, her best friend since forever, is sitting right next to her.  Confused.  Left out.  Wanting to know who this ‘Reagan’ is.

Amy makes a mental note to start eating lunch alone.  In a closet or under the bleachers or somewhere shit like this just can’t happen.

“Reagan’s my girlfriend,” she says softly, praying it was quiet enough to make it seem like it isn’t a big deal, but loud enough that Karma won’t need her to repeat it.

“Girlfriend.”  Karma says it like she’s rolling the word around in her mouth, trying to decide if she likes the taste.  “Girlfriend,” she says again.

Amy hasn’t heard that tone since Karma tried one of her mother’s kale and turnip muffins when they were twelve.  Then, it was followed quickly by a projectile vomiting moment the likes of which the Ashcroft kitchen had never seen before.

Amy discreetly slides an inch or two further away from Karma on the bench.

“Since when do you have a girlfriend?”

It’s a loaded question and they both know it.  If this was a new development, then Shane wouldn’t have assumed Karma knew.  And if it’s not a new development…

Then why the _fuck_ , Karma wonders, didn’t _she_ know?

“A month,” Amy says, noncommittally.  “Two?”

Karma’s fingers drum on the table top.  “I’ve been with Liam two months,” she says.  “Two months this weekend.”  

“OK,” Amy says, still refusing to look at Karma.  In the back of her mind, she knew that since the day Karma and Liam reunited was, after all, a day she’d spent weeks prepping for only to see it crash, burn, and sink to the depths of hell right in front of her.

“So, maybe it’s not exactly  two months,” Amy says.  She does the mental math in her head.  “One month, three weeks, four days?’  She shrugs.  “Give or take.”

Karma gets up and moves around the table, sitting down across from Amy, directly in her line of sight, and Amy has no choice but to look at her because looking away now would be so obvious, so weak.

“You’ve been seeing someone almost as long as I’ve been with Liam and you never told me?”

Amy shrugs again, mostly for lack of anything better to do.  “It’s not like it was a secret,” she says. And immediately knows that was the wrong tact to take.

“Of course not,” Karma snips.  “Because we don’t keep secrets, _right_?”

In her head, Amy envisions all of the unpleasant things she’s going to do to Shane.  

“I’m sorry,” she says, though apologizing to Karma leaves a taste in her mouth the reminds her again of kale and turnips.  “I just… we haven’t…” she sighs and shakes her head.  “I just hadn’t had a chance to tell you.”  She rubs her hand across the back of her neck, trying to ward off the headache she feels coming.  “I mean, come on Karma.  This is the first time you’ve eaten lunch with me - _us_ \- in three weeks. And we haven’t exactly been scheduling girl’s nights on the regular, you know?”

“Seems like you’ve probably been having a whole different kind of girl’s nights,” Karma says.  

Amy wants to be angry.  She wants to fling mashed potatoes off her tray into Karma’s face. She wants to demand to know where the hell Karma gets off giving her attitude and bitching about her keeping secrets and why the absolute fuck Karma thinks she’s got any right to be pissed.

Amy wants all that.  But she settles for a sigh.  And, yet again… ‘I’m sorry, Karma.”

Karma stares at her across the table, the anger and the hurt etched clearly on her face.  She wants to be angry too.  And unlike Amy, she’s having no trouble embracing it.

“Who else?” she asks.  “Who else knows?  Who else knew before me?”

Amy wonders if she’d be able to tie Shane to a chair and make him watch Liam and Karma make out for hours on end because, really, that’s about the only suitable punishment for this.

“Shane,” she she tells Karma.  “And Lauren and Theo, but only because they were there the night Reagan and I met.”  It’s a little lie, in the grand scheme.  No need to tell Karma about the Booker’s party and Shrimp Girl and the momster.  

“Anyone else?”  Karma presses.  This time, she _can_ read Amy and she knows there’s something the blonde isn’t telling her.

Amy runs a hand through her hair and goes for full honesty, because she knows there’s no other way out of this.  “My mom and Bruce,” she says.  “They had Reagan over for dinner, so meeting her was kind of, you know, essential.”

If Lauren and Shane and fucking _Theo_ knowing about Reagan before Karma did was bad, then Amy’s mom and step-father?  That was bad on a level usually reserved for after wedding confessions and birthday scavenger hunt fights.

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” Karma asks.  The anger’s drained from her face.  She’s not mad.  She’s hurt.

_I’m not angry with you.  Just disappointed._   

“Yes, I was,” Amy says.  She starts to reach across the table to take Karma’s hands, but thinks better of it.  “I just… I just wanted to find the right time, that’s all.”

“Like at Shane’s party?  A party Liam, and therefore me, would most likely be attending?  So I could be introduced to Reamy and all their glory with the rest of the Hester High riff-raff?”

And in that moment, Amy knows she’s well and truly fucked.  Because she hadn’t once thought about Karma being at the party.  She hadn’t once even considered it.  Her best friend slipped her mind.  

Again.

“I wouldn’t have done that to you -”

“I can still tell when you’re lying, Amy.”  Karma shakes her head.  “At least sometimes.”  She gets up to leave, clearly pissed, clearly hurt, and clearly in no mood to talk.  “Don’t worry,” she says.  “I’ll make sure Liam and I don’t come to the party.  I wouldn’t want to embarrass you or ruin your big night.”

There’s just enough venom behind the words to let Amy know how much finding out this way hurt Karma.  And just enough to finally push Amy past guilty right on into pissed off.  

“Grow the fuck up, Karma.”

Amy’s not sure what’s more surprising:  that the words came out of her mouth or the look on Karma’s face when they do.

“Excuse me?”

Amy considers backtracking, for a heartbeat, but then figures, fuck it.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  

“You’re pissed at me because I didn’t let you know every little detail of my life,”  she stands as she speaks, mostly because she doesn’t want to look up at Karma. “Did it ever once cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, I needed something that was mine?  Just mine?  Not Amy and Karma’s, not Hester’s, not all tied up in this… whatever this shit is that’s been going on with us since you decided to fake it?”  

Amy grabs up her bag and her tray.  She’s not quite done, but she knows that when she is, leaving is going to be her only option.  

“Since we sat up there on that roof and I, for whatever idiotic reason, said ‘let’s be lesbians’, I’ve been rejected, hurt, embarrassed, humiliated, and broken in every way you can imagine.” Amy can feel her heart hammering in her chest, but it doesn’t bother her.  It feels good.  “So, yeah, I kept something to myself.  Something special.  Something I had no idea I could ever have and still have no real idea where it’s going.  I’ve had one relationship before this, Karma, and in case you forgot that one was fifty percent lies and one hundred percent pain.”

“Amy, I-”

Amy cuts her off because, at this point, the ‘fuck this shit’ train has left the station and it isn’t coming back anytime soon.

“I have a girlfriend,” she says.  “Her name is Reagan.  She’s 19.  She has her own apartment, a couple of jobs, hates cats, loves music, has the sexiest eyebrows you’ve ever seen, and is hot enough to turn Shane straight.”  Even thinking about Reagan like this brings a smile to Amy’s face, which doesn’t go unnoticed by her or by Karma.  “My mother loves her, she charmed the shit out of Bruce, she and Shane get along frighteningly well, and last weekend she went shopping with Lauren in Dallas.  And _survived_.”

Karma stares at the ground.  She doesn’t know what to say or how to act.  Even in their worst fights, Amy never went off like this.  It’s a side of her best friend she’s never seen.

Seems like there’s a lot of those lately.

“I’m… we’re going to this stupid party this weekend,” Amy says.  The anger is slowly seeping out of her voice, but there’s still an edge to it.  “And if you’re there, you can meet her.  And if not… then… we’ll do lunch or something.”  Karma glances up, slightly relieved that things seem to be calming down.  “I’m not trying to hide her from you, Karma.  Or you from her.  I’m not embarrassed by either of you.  I just…”

“You just, what?”  Karma asks, finally finding her voice again.

Amy looks at her, dead in the eyes.  “I just needed something for me,” she says.  “Just for a little while.  Before the rest of the world comes in, before the Hester bullshit and all our baggage and… everything.”  She tears her eyes away from Karma then, because she doesn’t want to see the look she knows is coming.

“I just needed some time before everything got fucked up again,” she says softly.  The implication is clear.

Before _you_ fuck things up again, Karma.  Before you find some way to mess things up.  Like you did with faking it.  Like you did with the Brazilians at the carnival.  Like the truth or dare game from hell or the scavenger hunt gone wrong or _right fucking now_.

Amy heads to the nearest trash can to dump her tray.  “We’ll be at the party,” she says. “Maybe we’ll see you there.”   

She walks off to class without looking back, not entirely sure what the hell just happened or what it means or how she’s going to fix it or if even can be fixed.

All she knows is one simple thing.  She really should have just stayed in bed.    


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane apologizes and Reagan arrives at Hester.

There are a lot of things Amy misses from the time before she and Karma faked it.  

Girl’s nights without tension, the need for third wheels, and questions about her masturbation habits.

Having to think about her masturbation habits.

The feel of Karma snuggled up next to her on sleepover nights, without having to worry about boundaries or hands accidentally ending up somewhere they shouldn’t.

Knowing her best friend would be the first person she spoke to in the morning and the last one she talked to at night.

Being normal.

Being invisible.

Walking through the halls of Hester, heading for her locker, it’s that last one she really misses.

She’s thought about it enough that she can group the stares and whispers into three distinct categories:

There was the post “break-up” period (conscious uncoupling, she corrects herself, though it’s Karma’s voice she hears in her head). That was when everyone looked at her like someone had died, there were still free muffins and donuts, and Irma slipped her a little extra on the mashed potatoes.  There were even some flowers, though she’s pretty sure those were from Oliver and she tries not to think about that.

Then came the post Karma’s confession days when everyone looked at her like they were trying to see inside her, to find out is she was as big a fake as her friend.  The muffins and donuts disappeared.  Irma cut her potatoes back.  And even Oliver couldn’t quite look at her.

And now, well, now she had entered into the post Karma and Liam era.  This, she thought, was the worst, and not just for the obvious reasons.  

She’d expected to disappear again.  Now she wasn’t a lesbian, as far as anyone knew, she wasn’t faking it, and she wasn’t dating the hottest guy in school.  The day after Karma and Liam went public, Amy had expected to be able to find the nearest woodwork and contentedly disappear back into it.  

She should have known better.

Somehow, people had gotten it into their heads that she was the aggrieved party.  That Karma and Liam had screwed her over, had probably been carrying on some secret affair ever since the threesome-that-wasn’t.  That Karma had used her to get popularity and the guy and then left her alone and heartbroken.  

It wasn’t an altogether inaccurate description of things, she knew, even it was a bit unfair to Karma and, hell, even to Liam (though she was hard pressed to give even a tiny rat’s ass about that).  But she didn’t care enough to correct anyone’s misconceptions and she figured, wrongly again, that in a day or two the Hester student body would find something new to protest and she would once again be forgotten.

It had been two months (or would be this weekend, as Karma had reminder her) and the looks still hadn’t stopped.  The looks, the whispers, the sad ‘we’re so sorry for you’ smiles.

If the free donuts had come back, maybe she’d have been alright with it.

But, truthfully, she hated it.   She didn’t want to be pitied and she sure as hell didn’t like having her private pain on display.  It was bad enough that Shane and Lauren knew.   

Fuck.  Who was she kidding?  It was bad enough that _Karma_ knew.  It was bad enough that the worst of the pitying looks came from her own best friend.  A best friend who felt so bad about it all that she apologized at least once a day, but not so bad that she stopped dating Liam or holding his hand or managing - somehow - to make out with him within view of Amy at least once a week.  

Liam had given her one of those looks, once.  A look that seemed to say ‘I’m sorry I was willing to steal your girl and then slept with you and still got her back’.  

The look Amy gave him back didn’t kill him - looks can’t do that after all - but she was pretty sure it killed something.  Shane told her later that he’d heard Liam and Karma arguing and the phrase ‘it happens to _everyone_ , it’s no _big_ deal’ leaving Karma’s mouth a day or two later.

All the pity didn’t make her feel better, it just made her feel like an idiot.  It was hard enough trying to get over everything and get things back to normal.  She didn’t need the entire population of Hester reminding her of everything that had gone wrong.

That, she knew, was why Shane was so gung-ho on this party (like he really needed a reason).  This wasn’t the “outing” party all over again. Popularity and status and Homecoming Royalty weren’t on the line.  The big Reamy debut wasn’t about any of the assorted crap Karmy had been about, almost before it had even started.  

It was about showing everyone that Amy had moved on.

So maybe they would too.

Amy popped her locker and tried to ignore the stares and whispers, which were always worse after she’d been seen with Karma.  And she was sure someone had heard some of their exchange at lunch, probably the ‘grow the fuck up’ part, which she’d said just a little louder than she’d intended.  

She started exchanging books from her bag, prepping for her afternoon classes, none of which she shared with Karma.  She remembered when she’d thought that was a bad thing.

Shane slid up next to her, leaning one shoulder against the row of lockers.  “Hey,” he said, quietly, his usual bluster gone.  This was the Shane that Amy saw only once in a while.  When he’d confessed that he’d told Liam the truth about her and Karma.  When he’d secretly - or so he thought - _sincerely_ apologized to Lauren for the rumors about her pills.  

When he knew he’d fucked up.

If there was one thing Amy had learned about Shane, it was that he didn’t handle guilt well.  It wore on him and clutched at him, like gravity holding him down.

She knew the feeling.    

“Amy, I am so, so, so sorry,” he said.  He took one of her hands between his.  “I just assumed you had told her.”

Amy looked down at their joined hands, flicked her eyes to Shane’s face, back to the hands.  

He let go.

“You know what happens when _you_ assume, Shane,” she said.  “First, you end up outing me as a lesbian.  Then you convince me to have a threesome, because you assume Karma’s interested.”  She shut the locker and leaned against it.  “And then you out me.  Again.”  She frowned at him, but then shook her head and took his hand again.  She couldn’t stay mad at him.    

Shane smiled back at her.  “I really am sorry,” he said.  He knew she hated that phrase, knew she’d heard ‘I’m sorry’ from Karma so much that the words had practically lost all meaning.  

Amy shrugged.  “Not your fault,” she said, slinging her arm through his as they started down the hall.  “I should have told you that I hadn’t told her.  Or I should have just told her.”  

Shane stopped suddenly, holding tight to Amy’s arm and almost pulling her over.  “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

She heard the worry in his voice and knew, immediately, where his mind was going.  “Relax, Shane,” she said.  “I wasn’t trying to keep my options open or desperately hoping Karma would come to her senses.”  She looked down at the floor, scuffed one sneaker against the tile. “That ship has sailed,” she said softly.  She looked up at Shane, then but there were no tears.

Amy was done crying for Karma.  

“I just hadn’t…” she shrugged again.  “When I’m with Reagan, I don’t think about it.  About her.  It’s like we’re in our own little bubble and the only things that get in are what we let in.  Like you and Lauren and Theo.”  Amy smiled.  “I guess I didn’t want to burst my own bubble just yet.”

Shane grinned, so happy that she was happy.  And then, before he could speak again his eyes went wide.  

“Shane?” Amy asked.  “Earth to Shane?”  She waved her hand in front of his face.  “What’s gotten into…” her voice trailed off ass he turned to see what he was staring at.  “Oh,” she said.  “ _Damn_.”

If Amy had even the slightest doubt that she was, as she’d described it after her first kiss with Reagan, _so fucking gay_ , then the sight of her girlfriend walking towards them pretty much ended that.  

She was in her catering outfit, but Amy wasn’t sure she’d ever been to a party where the wait-staff looked like that.  And if there were such parties, she needed to be invited to them.  All of them.  

The white blouse was undone just one button too many, and the way the swell of Reagan;s breasts moved against as she walked was hypnotizing.  The skirt was pulled up just an inch, maybe two, too short, though it would’ve been hard to convince Amy right then that _too short_ was a possibility.  Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy, ‘I just rolled out of bed and don’t you wish you’d rolled with me’ bun, with some of  the newly dyed purple tips caressing her neck.

And then there was the walk.

Oh.  My.  God.  The.  Walk.

It wasn’t dirty or suggestive.  There was no extra shaking or bumping or swiveling hips.  There didn’t need to be.  Reagan was walking with a purpose.

It was the stride.  The expression on her face that brooked no interruptions, that said ‘get in my way and I will run you over and you will like it’.  She wasn’t walking.  She was stalking.  She was a hunter.   With a target.  

And when she got to Amy, and reached out to tuck a few loose blonde curls behind her ear while wrapping her other arm around Amy’s waist and pulling them - _fusing_ them - together, before cupping Amy’s cheek and pressing their lips together in a kiss that left Shane fanning himself like a Southern belle on a hot July day, one thing was clear to everyone there:

The Hunter had caught her prey.  

Yeah, there were some things Amy missed from before she and Karma had faked it.

But some of the new things weren’t so bad, either.  


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reagan gets Amy to cut class and says something surprising.

There was a time when Amy remembered every single kiss she and Karma ever shared.

The first one, at the assembly.  She was picking confetti out of her hair for weeks and sometimes the tingling in her lips as she lay in bed at night was so bad she couldn’t sleep.

The one in the quad, with their adoring public cheering them on and Karma snapping a future Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / she-probably-posterized-it-and-hung-it-around-campus-to- make-Liam-hot picture.  

The threesome.

Amy remembered them all, but _that one_ she tried desperately, post-wedding, to forget.

But what she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried, was how the kisses made her feel.  

Kissing Karma was… _fuck_ … it was everything.  It was coming home.  It was melting into someone and letting them consume you completely and never once minding.  It was a low, dull, thudding ache in her heart, a desire to be not just the first, but the only girl - the only _one_ \- Karma ever kissed again.

If kissing Karma was all that, then kissing Reagan - being kissed _by_ Reagan -  was, well, Amy wasn’t entirely sure there was a word for it. And even if there was, the moment Reagan’s lips pressed against hers, the split-second her tongue delved into Amy’s mouth, that moment in between breaths when Reagan nibbled on her bottom lip, a hand clutching Amy’s hip, the other running through her hair, fingers sliding down and across her cheek…

Even if there was a word, in those moments?  Amy’s brain couldn’t have found it if she tried.

Reagan stepped back, slowly ending the kiss, both hands sliding down to Amy’s hips, holding to her tightly, as if she was afraid the younger girl might float away.  Amy forced herself to open her eyes.  After their first kiss, she’d been so dazed (floored?  overcome? _fucking hot_.) that she’d stood there for more than a minute, eyes still squeezed shut.

Reagan had been nice about it.  She only giggled a little.  And then kissed her again, so that was good.

“Hey,” Reagan said softly, still close enough that Amy could feel the whisper against her lips.  

Amy nodded, not quite sure speaking was a real possibility just yet.  Not with Regan’s fingers now swirling soft circles against her sides and her lips still so close and the feel of her and

_fuck it_

It was Amy’s turn to reach out, tugging Reagan back to her, leaning in only to find her girlfriend had the same idea and was already halfway there.  They met in the middle, a soft moan slipping from between Reagan’s lips, and Amy suddenly had the urge to not be standing anymore, mostly because she wasn’t sure her legs could hold her.

Shane, still standing next to them, glanced around the crowded hallway.  Everyone was looking.   _Everyone_.  To hell with waiting for the party, he thought.  Reamy had _arrived_.

Still, he knew no matter how much Amy enjoyed kissing Reagan - and clearly that was a lot - this kind of public attention wasn’t her thing. He cleared his throat, trying to burst their little bubble.  “Um, Amy?  Reagan?”

Amy pulled back, fractionally, just enough to mutter “What?”

“Not that I’m not enjoying all the lesbian energies and all,” he said.  “But you’ve got quite the audience.”

“Fuck ‘em,”  Reagan said, her hands moving to cup Amy’s cheeks.  “Let ‘em stare.”

Shane hadn’t known her that long, but he couldn’t say he was surprised by her reaction.  Out and proud wasn’t just a description for Reagan.  It was who she was.  

Amy, on the other hand… “Aims?”  

Amy pulled back again and tipped her head, resting her forehead against Reagan’s.  She looked into  her girlfriend’s eyes, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Hey,” she said.

Reagan grinned.  “I already said that.  You know, before you decided to get me all hot and bothered right here in the hall.”

Amy let out something that sounded like a growl, the kind of sound Shane had never expected to hear from her and the kind that Reagan was quickly learning to bring out of her on a regular basis.  Just usually without so many people around.

“ _You’re_ hot and bothered?” Amy asked.  “I still have to go to class.  Do you have any idea how fucking impossible Biology is to begin with? And now I’m expected to do it while imagining…” she trailed off, suddenly remembering where she was.  “Um… imagining… you know… stuff…”

Reagan was bringing - pulling, dragging, hauling - Amy out of her shell, but there were still some places Amy couldn’t bring herself to go just yet.  Not in public.

In private was rapidly becoming another story though.

“Well,” Reagan said, stepping back a little and taking Amy’s hands in hers.  “I might have a solution for that.  My catering gig for today got cancelled.”

“The wedding?”  Amy asked.  She only remembered because Reagan had made a point of mentioning that it was her only gig for the next three days and it was in the afternoon and  she would, therefore, be home and _alone_ all night.

Even Amy had been able to read between those lines.

Reagan nodded.  “Seems the bride caught the groom with the best man last night after the rehearsal dinner.”  She grinned over at Shane. “Maybe somebody’s been taking party planning lessons from the Great Harvey.”

Shane frowned and shook his head.  “If I’d given them lessons, they wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

Reagan and Amy both laughed and the crowd, sensing the show was really over, slowly filtered out, moving on with their days.  Though, Shane did notice, more than a few of them tossed off a quick backward glance or two, just in case. 

“Anyway,” Reagan continued, running her thumbs across Amy’s knuckles.  “Since I don’t have to work now, I thought maybe I’d swing by here and see if I could convince my girlfriend to skip the rest of her day and come hang out with me?”

Shane nodded enthusiastically, preparing himself to push Amy out the school doors if he had to.  

Amy tilted her head slightly so he couldn’t see her smile.  For all his going on and on about wanting her to find someone so he could have the real lesbian friends he deserved, and so she could get the hell over Karma, Amy knew Shane was genuinely excited at how happy she’d been lately, and would do anything he could to keep her that way.

“I don’t know,” she said.  She could see his smile dropping out of the corner of her eye.  “I do have that Bio class to get to…”

Reagan closed the distance between them again bringing their entwined hands together between their chests.  “Come with me,” she said. “We can study chemistry.  Much more interesting subject matter.”

Amy tried.  Really she did.  But after a good fifteen seconds of holding it in, the laughter finally erupted out of her.  “Did you really just say that?  Study chemistry?”  Reagan was staring at he.  The glare said ‘I am not amused’, but the twitching corners of her mouth, told a different story.   “I’m sorry, babe,” Amy said, not even noticing how easily the endearment rolled out of her mouth.  “But seriously?”

“I was trying to be funny,” Reagan said, mock pouting in a way that once might have reminded Amy of Karma, but now just made her stare longingly at Reagan’s bottom lip.  “I’ve been told girls like a woman with a sense of humor.”

“If those are the lines you’re going to be using,” Amy said, “you better pray that’s true.”  She slung her bag over her shoulder and slipped her arm through Reagan’s.  “Come on, let’s get out of here before someone with better pick-up lines swoops in and steals me away.”

Amy had only taken a few steps before she realized, mostly from the pulling on her arm, that Reagan was still standing there.  “What?  I thought you wanted me to skip with you?”

“I did,” Reagan said. “I _do_.  I just didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“Well, I am just full of surprises then,” Amy replied.  “Let’s just say I’ve had enough of Hester for one day.”  She tugged on Reagan’s arm, urging her along.  “And besides, we have to talk about this party we’re apparently going to this weekend.”

Reagan’s face lit up and any hesitation Amy still had about Shane’s party burned off in the glow.  “We’re going?” Reagan asked, surprised for the second time in as many minutes.  She glanced at Shane.  “We got her to go?”  Shane nodded, though he was pretty sure - and slightly uneasy about - the fact that Karma had been the one to actually get Amy to go.

“Yes,” he said.  “And you two need to plan your outfits - no donut shirts or other food themed items, Amy - and I’ve got some ideas I’ll text you about your big entrance and…”

Shane droned on and Reagan listened and Amy, well, Amy tuned out.  She would go.  She would party.  She would be shown to the world, or at least the Hester portion of it.  But she drew the line at partaking in the planning.  She had standards.

But then she tuned back in.  Just in time, too.  

“And of course, you two probably need to talk about the Kar-” Shane caught the glare Amy shot at him and did his best, though that wasn’t saying much, to course correct in mid-thought.  “The car situation,” he said.  “Parking on my street during parties has just become something of a nightmare, so y’all need to plan accordingly.”

Reagan grinned at him and then turned to Amy who, for just a moment, thought she was home free.  

Like her luck was ever that good.  

Reagan slid over next to her, leaning her head against Amy’s shoulder.  “So, you told Karma about me then, huh?”

Amy stared at the floor, counting to ten, not wanting to look back up and kill Shane on the spot.  

“Hey,” Reagan said, putting one finger under Amy’s chin and gently lifting her face. “It’s no biggie.  She was going to find out sooner or later, right?”

“She has a point, Amy,” Shane said and then stepped back, shocked at how quickly Amy could snap her head around to glare at him.  “I’ll shut up now,” he said.  Twice in an hour he’d pissed her off.  Even for him that had to be some kind of record.  

“Come on Shrimps,” Reagan said.  “Let’s get out of here and you can tell me all about how Karma took it.  And then you can help me plan how to make the best first impression ever so she’ll have no choice but to love me.”  She slipped her hand into Amy’s and squeezed. “Sound good?

Amy nodded.  “But first?” she said.  “First, we study.”  She grinned at her girlfriend.  “I think I need some help with my chemistry.”

Reagan laughed and pressed a quick peck to Amy’s lips.  “I love you,” she said and then she was pulling Amy out through the doors and those words, those three little (and who was Amy kidding, those words were anything _but_ little) danced through the air between them.

That one kiss was the total opposite of the fever-inducing, toe-curling, mind-blanking kiss from earlier.  It was quick, barely a brush of lips, and it certainly didn’t scream ‘take me right here, right now.’

But it still made Amy’s knees buckle.

And while the memories of the kisses Karma had given her had faded, Amy still remembered every single kiss she and Reagan had shared.

And this one?  This half a second blip on the radar?

This one was her favorite one of all.  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback: Reagan finds out about Amy and Karma

Throughout the entire one month, three weeks, and four days (give or take), they’d been dating, Reagan had always been the one to tell Amy things first.

She told her about her family.  Her absentee mom, workaholic dad, nasty bitch of a grandmother.  Her brother who’d done two tours in Iraq and come back whole.  

She told Amy about her dream of being a music producer. She’d always loved music and she could spend hours just rearranging and remixing the same song, getting the beat just right.  Being a cater-waiter was a bill payer, she said, and the DJ’ing was like college, on-the-job training.  

She told her about her old girlfriends.  Two.  Anna, the pointless fling that had made her realize she was gay.  One kiss, she said, that was all it took.  

Amy didn’t need to say anything to that.  The look on her face told Reagan all she needed to know.

And then there was Shelby.  One year, four months, two weeks, six days.  Reagan told Amy Shelby was her first love.

Even at the time - three weeks and two days into their relationship - Reagan already knew Shelby might have been her first love, but she was definitely not her _last_.

Reagan told Amy everything.  Anything she asked and  anything she didn’t.  And she didn’t mind that Amy wasn’t as… forthcoming.  She didn’t care that the younger girl doled out bits and pieces of her life one morsel at a time.  For those first few weeks, Reagan waited on those morsels, greedily snatching them up when Amy shared.  

Slowly, Amy opened up.  She talked about Bruce and her mom, about how hard it had been to see another man come along, this time with a little blonde she-devil in tow.  It had scared her, Amy said.  It had been just her and her mom and now there was an insta-family sitting in her living room and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to love them or if she could even like them.

When Amy finally realized that she actually liked Lauren, Reagan was the first person she told.  But only after she made her swear to never tell.  

Amy told her about Shane.  About how he had supported her through her confusion and her frighteningly bad epic failures.  Reagan could tell it was important to Amy that she and Shane get along.  The boy _mattered_ to Amy, mattered in ways Amy couldn’t quite put into words, but Reagan could hear it in her voice when she talked about him and see it in the way she giggled and smiled more whenever he was around.

And, eventually, Amy told her about Karma.

Or at least Reagan thought she did.

Amy told her about her weird, goofy, funny, altogether wonderful best friend.  She told her how they’d met in a ball pit.  About their Unicorn phase.  About the time Karma beat up Scott Rooney for trying to kiss Amy during recess (ten-year-old Karma was quite the badass, Amy said).  

She told Reagan about Karma’s desire for Liam and about her own distaste for the boy.  About how she didn’t trust him because, let’s face it, Hester’s number one player wasn’t just going to suddenly change his ways, right?  Karma was another fuck to Liam, that and nothing else.

Amy was sure of that, she said.  And she really wanted _better_ for her friend. For her _best_ friend.

And the way the light dimmed slightly behind Amy’s eyes as she said it?  Well, that told Reagan a lot too.  

Even if she refused to hear it.

So, after five weeks together, Reagan thought Amy had told her everything.  At least the basics.  She knew there’d be more.  There’s always more.  Reagan had seen enough good couples in her life to know that five or ten or twenty or one thousand weeks, it didn’t matter.  There was always more.  More to discover, to learn, to be amazed by.  

And, in the end, it wasn’t Amy that told her about Karma, not really.  It was Lauren.  

They’d been on a double date with Lauren and Theo.  Reagan liked being able to hang out with Amy’s friends, liked the feeling of being a couple with other people  instead of locked behind Amy’s bedroom door or hidden away in her apartment.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like being alone with Amy, there were times when she could have happily done that for days and weeks on end.  

But she didn’t want Amy to feel like she was dating the female Liam.  She didn’t want Amy to feel like it was all about stolen secret kisses behind closed doors.

She wanted - _needed_ \- her to feel loved.  And love wasn’t a secret or something you hid away.  Though Amy had never come out and said it, Reagan could tell she’d had enough of that kind of love in her life.  

They’d been at a restaurant.  Some place none of them had ever been.  Amy liked going new places with Reagan, so the older girl always tried to find something different for them to do.  

She’d been sitting next to Amy, laughing politely at something Theo had said even though it was barely even funny, when Amy’s phone buzzed on the table.  The goofy grinning face on the screen said it all.

Karma.

“You’re not going to get that, right?”  Lauren asked.  Reagan knew Lauren didn’t like Amy’s BFF, hell, anyone who had spent more than five minutes around Amy and her step-sister knew that.  

Amy  shook her head and declined the call.  

Karma called back two minutes later.

And four minutes _after_ that.

And five minutes after _that_.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lauren said, as she snatched the phone from Amy and shut it off.  “Doesn’t she know it’s bad form to call your ex when she’s on a date?”  She tossed the phone back down on the table.  “Even if she’s not _really_ your ex.  But still…”

Lauren trailed off as she noticed the look on Amy’s face.  She hadn’t seen her look like that since the night of the wedding.

Well.   _Shit_.

Reagan turned to Amy, confused, yes, but suddenly understanding oh so much, all at once.  

“You two… you and Karma… you were a couple?”

Amy nodded.  Then shook her head.  Then shrugged.

It was a truthful answer, really.

Lauren and Theo excused themselves, not that Amy or Reagan noticed.   Reagan turned fully in her chair, facing Amy, but she crossed her arms across her chest, tucked her feet under the chair.  It took Amy fifteen long minutes to go through the whole story.

It was the longest they’d gone without touching since they started dating.

When she was done, Amy stared down at the table, barely holding back tears.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.  I just… I didn’t know how.”

Reagan nodded.  She could understand that.  It was a fucking lot to have to share with someone.

But she thought they’d gotten there.  She thought they were in that place.   _Together_.

She pulled her coat off the back of the chair and stood.  “I need to go,” she said.  She saw Amy’s eyes squeeze shut, spilling the tears she’d been fighting off.  “I’m not… this isn’t… I just need some time, OK?”

Amy nodded, but Reagan was already in motion.  Away from the table.  Out the door.  Out into the chilly night and away from the restaurant.  She saw Lauren and Theo in the parking lot and wanted to call out to them, to tell Lauren to go to her sister, that Amy needed her.

But her mouth was dry and her throat closed up and she just kept moving.

She’d asked for time and Amy gave it to her.  Five whole minutes of it.

The blonde caught up to her three blocks from the restaurant.  She reached out and grabbed Reagan’s arm, pulling her around.  She was going for dramatic, aiming to yank her girlfriend into a soulful, mind melting kiss, the kind that said everything her words couldn’t.

In typical Amy fashion, she spun Reagan around and watched in horror as her girlfriend - _was she still her girlfriend?_ \- slipped and fell onto the sidewalk.

“Shit,” Amy yelled as she crouched next to Reagan.  “I’m so sorry.  That wasn’t the plan.  I as trying to be all romantic and I just fucked it up which really shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point, but I swear Reagan -”

Reagan pressed two fingers against her lips, stilling her.  

“Are you still in love with her?” she asked.  Reagan was a smart girl.  She knew that of everything she’d heard tonight, the only thing that mattered between her and Amy was the answer to two very simple questions.

“Are you still in love with Karma?” she asked again softly.  Knowing that if Amy said yes, the second question wouldn’t matter.

Amy shook her head.  Slowly at first, but then more confidently.  She’d known for a while that she was past Karma, past the constant need and ache and maybe not the caring but that would never quite fade, and she wouldn’t really want it to.

Reagan took in a deep shuddering breath.  She hadn’t realized how much she’d _wanted_ that to be the answer.

“Amy,” she said, staring at her girlfriend - and yes, she was still that.  “Are you in love with _me_?”

Amy’s eyes grew incredibly wide.  Reagan knew the look.  She’d seen it all over Amy’s face the first time they’d kissed, the first time she had slowly tugged her shirt off and laid soft, gentle kisses across her stomach, the first time she’s scraped her fingernails up and across Amy’s bare back.

She was scared.  

She was fucking terrified.  

Reagan knew the feeling.

“Amy?”  She hoped she’d managed to keep the pleading tone out of her voice.

Amy swallowed once and let out her own slow breath.  “Does falling in that direction count?”

Reagan laughed and her shoulders shook and she pulled Amy down onto her.  And they sat there like that, giggling and cuddling on the cold sidewalk until their laughter had stilled and Reagan pressed her lips to Amy’s and rested their foreheads together.

Yeah, she thought, falling definitely counts.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reagan and Amy talk about what Reagan said and how Amy feels about it.

For one month, three weeks, and four days, it had been Reagan who said things first.  The first to reveal, the first to share, the first to laugh, hell, she’d been the first to let out a low moan during a kiss.

Amy might have taken over the lead on that one though.  Once the seal had been broken, Reagan quickly discovered that her girlfriend wasn’t particularly quiet when she was turned on.  Which, since about the second week of that one month, seemed to be Amy’s perpetual state around Reagan.

But in every other way, it was Reagan who went first.  And now, she’d done it again.

She hadn’t planned to say it.  Really, she hadn’t.  Not then.  Not in the Hester High hallway.  Not with Shane standing like three feet away. Not in that blurting, I just can’t hold it in case you are just so fucking adorable and if I have to keep this in one more minute I might just die kind of way.

As she steered the car toward her apartment, she resisted the urge to bang her head on the steering wheel.  The urge to leap from the car and run as fast and as far as she could.  To turn to Amy and tell her _look, I didn’t mean that thing I said back there, you know, the love thing and how about we just pretend it never happened and go back to my place and maybe I can make you moan enough that you forget I ever opened my mouth…_

She couldn’t do that.  She couldn’t take it back.  And, truthfully, even if she could, she wouldn’t.  She’d change the how of it, the where and when, but she would never take it back.  She couldn’t do that to Amy.

Or to herself.

Reagan might have regretted a lot about the last fifteen minutes, but she could never regret loving Amy.  Even if this was the thing that ruined it all, even if she had spoken too quickly, if letting her guard down for those thirty stinking seconds had fucked up the best thing she’d ever had?  

She would never regret the feeling.  Loving Amy did something to her.  She couldn’t quite describe it, not without sounding like a cheesy pop song about fireworks and swelling hearts and while she was secretly a little bit of a romantic at heart, she had a rep to maintain, and cool DJ’s didn’t ramble on about hearts and flowers and sweet nothings like some grade school girl with her first crush.

Reagan let her eyes flick from the road to Amy,  staring out the same window she’d had her gaze fixed on since they left the high school parking lot.  And she felt, literally fucking felt, her heart skip a beat.

Fuck reputations.  She was a goner.  She’d wear flowery sun dresses and skip through fields of widlflowers and dress their kids - twin daughters, of course - in matching Christmas dresses for the family holiday card photo, if it meant spending every waking moment with Amy.

God, she was _screwed_.

And the fact that Amy hadn’t said a word, hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t even _breathed_ audibly since Reagan’s sudden blurt?  That didn’t concern her at all.  Nope.  Not even a little.

Her heart always raced like this.  Her palms were always this sweaty.  That slowly spreading gnawing put in her stomach?  That was there 24/7/365.

Nope.  No problems whatsoever, she thought.  Everything fucking five by five over here.  

She had a brief moment of panic - _absolute fucking terror_ \- and thought about spinning the car out.  Slamming into tree sounded mildly better that the deafening fucking silence - and oh, how she understood that phrase now - she’d endured since they left Hester.  

But that would only fix the short term.  

It wasn’t the short term that worried her.  Try as she might - and her imagination was trying awfully damn hard - Reagan couldn’t imagine Amy breaking up with her just because she’d said… that.  She might not know everything about Amy yet, might not be the expert on her that Karma was, but she knew that wasn’t Amy’s style.  

No, Amy wouldn’t just end it.  She’d try.  She would shove her own fears, doubts, and feelings way down deep and try for Reagan.  Because that’s what Amy did.  That was who she was.

So, in the short term, Reagan knew they’d still be together.  But long term?  

Why couldn’t that gnawing pit just swallow her whole?

She tried to focus on the positive.  Amy had said she was falling.  That was good, right?  Falling meant possibility.  Falling meant Reagan wasn't floating completely alone out here.  And maybe Amy wasn’t done falling, maybe she hadn’t… landed, yet.  But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t.  That didn’t mean this had become some bad one-sided unrequited mess where they couldn’t be around each other for more than five minutes because it was just so fucking uncomfortable.

Oh, shit, she thought.  I’m her.  I’m Amy.  And she’s _my Karma_.

She took a corner a little too sharply, found herself slamming on the brakes to keep from rolling up on the sidewalk, and when even that didn’t get a reaction from Amy, Reagan finally couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Really?  Seriously?  Are you fucking kidding me here?  First the chemistry bit and now ‘a penny’?  I need to get my brain and mouth re-fucking-wired.

And then she remembered.  There was the little matter of those three other words too.

Amy smiled, but didn’t turn from the window.  “You’re a DJ and a cater-waiter.  You sure you’ve got a penny to spare?”

The sound of her voice was like a rush of oxygen and Reagan couldn’t help but gasp.  She recovered quickly. relieved that at least they could still joke.  “Cheap shot, Shrimps,” she said, reaching out hand and slapping Amy’s thigh.  

When Amy caught her hand and laced their fingers together, Reagan was sure she’d be able to feel her pulse slamming the blood through her veins at an unhealthy rate.  

“Seriously, though,” she said.  “Whatcha thinking about over there?”  Amy brushed her thumb across Reagan’s skin and the older girl started searching desperately for some place to pull over.  If the feel of Amy’s thumb against her knuckles was enough to make her feel like her heart was going to drum right out of her chest, then she was in  no condition to drive.

Amy turned from the window, her fingers squeezing tightly around Reagan’s hand.  “I was thinking about you,” she said.  And Reagan felt a moment of hope swell up out of that pit in her stomach.  “I was thinking about what you said.”

‘Oh.”  It was all Reagan could manage and even that one word, that one syllable, scratched against her throat as it worked its way out.  As that hope disappeared back down to whatever foolish place it had come from.

“Can I ask you something?”  Amy shifted in her seat so she was facing Reagan, but she never let go of her hand.  “You remember the other night?  At your place?  When things got… heated?”

Reagan’s heart twitched.  Did she remember the feeling of Amy’s naked skin against hers?  Did she remember seeing Amy fully for the first time, stretched out across her bed, the light from the one lamp on her small bedside table casting shadows across Amy’s body in all the right places?  Did she remember them falling into bed together, wrapped up in one another, the feel of Amy’s breasts pressed against her back and Amy’s fingers tracing endless little swirls all across her skin until she’d fallen asleep cradled in the younger girl’s arms?

Reagan nodded.  She might have had a vague recollection.

“You stopped it,” Amy said.  “We were… well, I think we were going to… and then you stopped it. You kissed me and cuddled me and we slept together, but we really _slept_ , even though we were naked and we hadn’t gotten there before -”

“Amy,”  Reagan’s voice snapped the blonde out of her ramble.  Something about thinking about her and Reagan all naked and fingers and lips and touches seemed to make her lose her train of thought.

“Sorry,” Amy said, blushing she stared down at their linked hands.  “Why?”  she asked.  There was no judgment in her tone, just genuine questioning and confusion.  “If you’re in love with me, then why did you stop?”

And now Reagan _had_ to stop because there was no way she was even close to capable of having this conversation and driving.  She swung across two lanes of oncoming traffic, steering them into the parking lot of one of the about 1 billion non-descript office buildings in Austin.  She chose a spot as far removed from everyone else as possible and parked.  

Her hand dropped from the wheel and into her lap.  Amy was still clutching the other one, though Reagan suspected that might have had more to do with a sudden rush of fear at her stunt car driving than it did with romance.

She stared straight ahead for a minute, trying to pull it all together.  She knew the answer.  She knew _exactly_ why she’d stopped them the other night.  But even in her head it was a bit convoluted and confusing and if she didn’t tell Amy this exactly right…

“You remember when I told you about my old girlfriends?”

The way she felt Amy’s grip on her hand loosen slightly told her that she probably hadn’t chosen the best way to start.  But fuck all, she was in it now.

The only way out was straight on through.

“Anna was a fling,” she said.  “A hot fling, but nothing serious.  She was my training wheels girlfriend.  It was all new and different and nothing I’d ever done before… I got to learn about all things lesbian and she got.. well…”

“I get it,” Amy said gently.  She knew somewhere in here there was a point.  Reagan always had a point.  But she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about her girlfriend’s past sexual adventures as a way of explaining why she’d refused sex with her.

“Shelby was something different.”  Reagan allowed herself a small smile at the memory.  Yeah, it had ended badly, but sometimes the trip was worth the ending.  “I loved her,” she said.  “And she loved me.  And that made all the difference.”

Reagan turned in her seat, pulling their conjoined hands into her lap.  She wanted Amy to see her face, to look in her eyes.  She wanted there to be no doubt.  “Anna was my first, but Shelby was… my real  first in every way that mattered.  First real love.  First real lover.”  She let out a shuddering breath, praying she’d find the words to make Amy understand.  “You know how they always say sex is better with someone you love and someone who loves you back?”

Amy nodded.  She’d said that to Karma more times than she could count.  

“Well,” Reagan said.  “For once, they speak the truth.  Sex with Anna was hot and amazing,  but with Shelby… being in love, together… I’ve never felt anything like that.”

Amy wanted to pull her hand away.  She wanted to leap from the car and curl up and cry.  She didn’t care what Reagan’s point was anymore.  She didn’t care about the answer to her question or why Reagan had chosen today to say those words or anything else.

All she could think was that never wanted to hear the name Shelby ever again.

“That’s why I stopped us that night,” Reagan said.  She saw Amy’s eyes snap up to meet her own.  “I don’t want to be your Anna,”  she said. “I _can’t_ be.  It would fucking _kill_ me.  I want.. I _need_ to be your Shelby.  Because what I had for my first is what I want for you.  I want your first - and fuck that shit with Liam, _we’re_ going to be your first - I want that to be between you and someone who loves you.  And someone you love back.”

“But you do love me,” Amy said softly.  

Reagan nodded.  “I started falling for you the moment you climbed that ladder to be with me at the rave.”  She squeezed Amy’s hand tightly.  “I’ve loved you since the night you chased after me when I found out about you and Karma.”  She brought Amy’s hand closer and brushed her lips across the blonde’s knuckles.  “And if I’m lucky enough that someday you feel that for me… I’m willing to wait for that day.  As long as it takes.”

“Why?” Amy asked.  She hadn’t meant to.  It wasn’t what she wanted to say.  But after everything, every rejection, every heartbreak, some part of her need to hear it.

“Because,” Reagan said.  “Because if what I felt for Shelby made being with her that incredible…”  She blinked back tears she hadn’t even known were there.  “Then what I feel for you and being with you... “  She smiled ruefully.  “Being with you might well ruin me for all other women.  Ever.”

Amy laughed and cried and felt her heart shaking within her chest.  

“I’m sorry I told you the way I did,” Reagan said.  “That wasn’t how I wanted to do it.  I wanted it to be sweet and romantic and like something out of a movie -”

She fell silent as Amy pressed two fingers to her lips.  “I don’t need a movie, Reagan,”  she said.  “I just need _you_.”

Amy scrambled out of her seat and into Reagan’s lap, moving those two fingers aside and crashing her mouth against Reagan, slowly, deliberately devouring every inch of her girlfriend’s lips, before she suddenly pulled back to stare into Reagan’s eyes.

“You didn’t have to stop the other night,” she said.  And the look that flickered behind Reagan’s eyes as she realized what Amy was saying?  No look had ever made Amy feel more wanted or loved in her life.  “I love you, too.”

Amy ran her hands through Reagan’s hair and pulled her into a kiss  And then another.  And then another.  And somewhere along the way they both lost count and track of time and neither one of them gave a damn.

Throughout the entire one month, three weeks, and four days (give or take), they’d been dating, Reagan had always been the one to tell Amy things first.  And she’d been so sure this time she’d made a mistake.  

As she felt Amy’s hands tangle in her hair and felt her murmur “I love you” against her lips, Reagan realized she never been so happy to be wrong in her life.  


	6. Chapter 6

So this, Amy thought, is what it's like to be loved.

She leaned against the window of Reagan's car, letting her eyes shut. The cool glass did little to fade the flush reddening her skin or lessen the pleasurable burn of all the trails Reagan's lips had traced against her collarbone and the soft skin of her neck. She was going to have to wear high collared shirts to school for the next week.

Not that she minded.

After all, a little territory marking was to be expected, right? In a little more than a day, Reagan and Karma would come face-to-face for the first time. And Amy  _might_  have mentioned Karma could get a little territorial - scrappy, she'd said - and while Amy knew Reagan had no doubts about her feelings, especially now, she also knew the marks weren't there to reassure Reagan. Or to turn Amy on.

Though, to Amy's slight surprise, feeling those little bites across her skin did exactly that.

No, the marks weren't there for either of them. They were there for Karma. And Amy and Reagan both knew it, even if they never once discussed it.

Amy knew it would probably only make things worse. If Karma's reaction to being the last to know was  _that_  bad, then seeing Amy with hickeys - fucking  _hickeys -_ might well drive Karma round the bend.

"You OK over there, Shrimps?" Reagan took one hand off the wheel and laid it on Amy's thigh. She smiled when Amy took her hand and entwined their fingers. "I know my makeout game is strong," she said, "but I didn't think even I could render someone speechless."

Amy popped one eye open and arched an eyebrow at her girlfriend. Reagan repressed a smirk. Amy's eyebrow arch invariably made her look like she was having some kind of electrocution induced fit.

"Maybe," Amy said, "I'm just planning out what I'm going to do  _to_ _you_ , later." She did her best to sound seductive, trying to mimic the husky undertone Reagan's voice took on whenever she wanted Amy.

Which, Amy thought happily, was so  _very_ often.

Reagan  _did_ smirk then. "Nice try," she said. "But you forget, I know you too well. I mean, sure, once we get going you're quite the little top." She squeezed Amy's hand and smiled at the way even that simple a gesture could still make her skin tingle. "But you don't initiate. I'm the starter."

"So what does that make me?" Amy asked. "The finisher?"

Reagan pulled her eyes from the road for just a moment and turned to Amy. The younger girl felt her face flush again as she saw the heavy-lidded look of lust in her girlfriend's eyes. "I hope so," Reagan said. "I really do hope so."

Amy was suddenly glad that they were in motion, that Reagan was driving, because that was about the only thing keeping her from crawling into the older girl's lap again right that second. And. seeing as how they'd damn near fucked not ten minutes ago in the parking lot, Amy knew if they started again?

They weren't stopping. Not for a long, long while.

Amy slipped her sneakers off and turned in her seat, stretching her legs over the center console and draping Reagan's lap. "Well, if that's the case, she said, "tell me again why we're  _not_  going to your place?" She rubbed a foot across Reagan's thigh, treading dangerously close to the oh-so-short hemline of her skirt.

Not the safest play while driving, she knew. But there was just something about her girlfriend that made her want to take a few risks.

Little ones. Big ones.

Even ones with her heart.

Reagan pulled her hand free from Amy's grasp and moved it atop her legs, stopping the flirtatious foot before it caused an accident. "What?" Reagan asked. "Did you think telling me you loved me was all you had to do to get in my pants?"

Amy nodded and slid the other foot across Reagan's lap. Her heel slipped between the older girl's thighs, pressing the fabric of her skirt up and Reagan, almost involuntarily, spread her legs just a little.

" _Fuck_." The word hissed out from between her teeth and Reagan had to put both hands back on the wheel. "Shrimps…" she whined quietly.

"Tell me you want me to stop," Amy said, her foot sliding just a bit further. A light twist, a little back and forth, and Reagan's eyes fluttered. "Tell me you want me to stop and I will," she said again.

Reagan's hands clamped down on the wheel. "Amy…"

The foot suddenly disappeared and Reagan wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

She knew  _exactly_ what she was a moment later when Amy unbuckled her belt and leaned across the seats, her hand sliding down where her foot had just been.

"All you have to do is say 'stop'" Amy said. She rested her head on Reagan's shoulder and her words whispered across her girlfriend's skin. "Unless you don't want me to?"

Reagan's teeth clamped down on her bottom lip as she did her best to stifle a moan. She felt her skirt sliding higher and then Amy's fingers were tracing delicate circles in a slowly shrinking pattern, getting closer and closer and closer…

"Reagan?" Amy could see the goosebumps rising on her girlfriend's cheeks. "What was it you said?" she asked. "That I don't  _initiate_?"

She emphasized the word with a quick, hard, three-fingered pressure against just the right spot.

And then she pulled her hand away, slid back into her seat, and buckled back up.

Reagan's arms trembled and her foot slipped off the gas. She shot a glare at Amy. "What the  _fuck_ was that?"

Amy shrugged, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "What was what?" she asked, feigning innocence. "Did I do  _something_?"

Reagan took the last turn onto Amy's street and thanked God that she hadn't done it so hard she ended up on two wheels. She slid into her usual parking spot in front of the house and looked at Amy.

"Did you think all  _that_ ," she said, gesturing at Amy's hand and her foot and then at everything in between. "Did you think all that was going to get me to turn this car around, take you to my place, and have my way with you?"

Amy shook her head. "Nope," she said. "I was thinking it would be a much more  _mutual_  way-having." She smirked at her girlfriend. "Though if you just wanted to  _have_  your way with  _me_ , well, I don't think I'd object too much."

Reagan didn't say anything. Fuck, she wasn't even convinced she  _could_  speak. This was a side of Amy she'd never seen, she doubted  _anyone_  had ever seen it. It was confident. In control.

And so  _fucking hot_.

Reagan closed her eyes and tried not to feel. She tried not to feel the way her own hand was tracing the path Amy's had blazed across her thighs. She tried not to feel the way the hairs on the back of her neck were still standing - hell,  _vibrating_  - or the way her teeth sliding across her lip made her imagine what they'd feel like sliding across and then down, between Amy's -

" _Fuck,"_ she hissed again. "You're killing me, Shrimps. You're fucking  _killing_  me."

Amy chuckled and it was such an easy, goofy, fun sound that it snapped both girls out of their haze. "Good," Amy said. "Now you know what making me  _wait_  feels like."

" _That's_  what this was about?" Reagan asked. "You just… with the foot… and the fingers…. and the…" She took a deep breath, trying to keep those  _feelings_ from getting all worked up again. "All this because I wouldn't take you home and fuck you?"

Amy shrugged again. "Maybe," she said, pouting like a little kid. "I just don't get why we have to wait anymore."

Reagan smiled and reached across the seats, brushing a few errant strands of hair out of Amy's face. "I know you don't need the romance and the candles and all that," she said. "But your -  _our_ \- first time should still be special. And special is not my sheets that haven't been washed in a week and my apartment that looks like a horde of teenage boys just got done with a three day long bender."

"You were the one who invited Shane, Duke, and Theo to play beer pong," Amy retorted. "But, fine, whatever. If you'd rather clean than be dirty with me…"

Reagan leaned over the seats and brought her face close to Amy's. "Trust me, Shrimps, there's  _nothing_ I would rather do than be dirty with you." This time it was Amy's turn to flush at the huskiness in Reagan's voice, the way the unabashed lust in it made even 'Shrimps' sound like sex. "And there will be plenty of time for that."

"You sure?" Amy asked and wondered, even as she said it, just when she'd become this sex crazed teenager. "I mean, you never know what might happen. I could get hit by a bus. You could develop a tumor on your optic nerve and go blind. I could-"

"You could stop being so desperate and horny and  _cute_  and just get out of the car," Reagan said as she tugged the keys from the ignition. She rolled her eyes and hoped she sounded calm and collected and not like she was about five seconds from fucking Amy right there in Farrah's front yeard. "I swear," she said. "Sometimes it's like I'm dating a fifteen year old boy."

She slid from the car quickly, before her heart and parts slightly south of the heart won out over her head. She saw Amy's mouth open, likely to launch a snarky little comeback and, since the snark was one of the things Reagan found incredibly hot about the blonde, she moved up the driveway even faster.

Amy sat in the car - comeback at the ready - but the words died as she saw Reagan headed up the driveway and she got another look at her in that skirt. From behind.

And started imagining herself slowly pulling it higher and higher. Sliding her hands underneath it. Watching as it slid up Reagan's thighs, right at eye level…

Damn, Amy thought. I  _am_  a fifteen year old boy.

She hopped from the car, carrying her sneakers in one hand and her backpack in the other, and followed Reagan to the door. She slid up behind her and wrapped her arms around the older girl's waist, resting her chin on her shoulder.

"I love you," she said. She slipped one hand out and fit her key into the lock, and then pushed the front door open.

Reagan tipped her head against Amy's. "I love you, too." She turned and pressed a quick kiss to Amy's temple, and then arched an eyebrow. "And damn, am I glad you finally got that lock on your bedroom door."

And with that, she dashed inside and Amy could hear her hurtling up the stairs.

She stepped into the house and closed the door, leaning back up against it for just a second, before she smiled, dropped her bag, and ran up the stairs to her room, the door swinging shut behind her, Reagan clicking the lock into place before she tackled Amy to the bed.

So,  _this_ , Amy thought, is what it's like to be loved.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reagan and Amy spend the afternoon talking about Karma, while Karma spends it "stalking" them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little different. It goes back and forth between Reagan/Amy and Karma and gets a little angsty. And if you love Karma (and I do) you probably won't like her as much for the next couple chapters, but there's no story if there's no conflict, right?

These were the moments Reagan loved.

Not that she didn't enjoy the others - the ones with less clothing and more heavy breathing and more the feel of Amy's lips everywhere on her body - but  _these_  were the ones that meant the most.

The quiet ones. Just being together, wrapped up in each other. Sometimes they could go an hour or more without talking, just holding on to each other, like they were in their own little bubble.

Of course, that bubble, like all bubbles, eventually had to burst.

This time, it was her phone. It buzzed and buzzed and buzzed and they ignored and ignored and ignored it, right up to the point where it vibrated its way off Amy's nightstand. The thunk of it on the floor was just enough to shake them out of their little world.

"You probably should get that," Amy said, though the arms she had wrapped around Reagan's waist didn't loosen their grip even a bit. "It could be someone important."

Reagan's hand continued to cup Amy's cheek, her thumb still tracing soft patterns back and forth against her girlfriend's skin - and she chuckled at the way she thought of her limbs and hands and lips all doing things independently, like she had no control.

Then again, when it came to Amy, Reagan had quickly learned she really  _didn't_ have much control.

"I doubt it," she replied. "Everyone important is right here. So unless you've figured out some way to call me without using your hands…"

Amy's lips curved into a quirky grin that reminded Reagan of every time Shane was about to say something wildly inappropriate. "Well," she said. "I  _can_ do amazing things with my as-"

"And I'm getting the phone!" Reagan wiggled loose and rolled off the bed, unwilling to even consider the places Amy could have been going with that thought.

No control, she thought. None whatsoever.

She snatched the phone up off the floor and checked the display. "Just a text from my boss," she said. "Reminding me we've got a job on Monday." She plopped back down on the bed and burrowed into Amy, cheeks pressing together as she held the phone over their heads. "Say cheese!"

"Fuck, Reagan!" Amy tried to turn away, but Reagan's finger tapped the shutter button before she could get her face all the way around to the pillow. "We've been lying here for like an hour, and we were…  _busy_ … before that, " Amy whined. "I probably look like shit."

Reagan tilted her head back and regarded the younger girl. "Not possible," she said.

Amy rolled her eyes. "You're biased."

"Yup," Reagan said, pressing a quick peck to Amy's lips. "But that doesn't make me any less right." She tapped the screen on the phone and brought the picture back up. "See?" she said, holding it up so Amy could see. "Fucking gorgeous."

Amy glanced at the screen. Her face was half hidden, but there was a definite smile and her hair, though mussed, didn't look like she'd been almost having sex for most of the afternoon. But she hardly noticed herself in the photo. All she could look at was Reagan, looking at her. No one had ever looked at her like that, not even Karma. It was a look that made Amy's breath hitch in her throat and her heart race just a little.

"You gonna post that?" Reagan lived for posting pics on Facebook and Instagram. It kind of reminded Amy of Karma, but those were words that would never leave her mouth, not even under penalty of death. When Reagan nodded, Amy spoke again. "Cool." She swung her legs off the bed and stood. "Just make sure you tag me in it."

"What?" Reagan knew she hadn't heard that right. In the entirety of their relationship, Amy had never once let her tag her in any pics. Reagan knew why - it was hard to keep something to yourself once it was splashed all over the Internet - but since Amy didn't complain about her posting, she didn't complain about not tagging her. "You're serious?"

Amy nodded, stretching her arms over her head. "Karma knows about you now," she said, though truthfully, that was only half of it. As nervous as she was about her best friend and her girlfriend finally meeting, Amy was more sick and fucking tired of hiding away a part of her life, especially when it was the part that made her happiest. "No more secrets," she said.

Reagan grinned and hurriedly tapped buttons on her screen, uploading the pic to her Facebook account.

_Spending time with_ _**Amy Raudenfeld.** _ _Best. Girlfriend. Ever._

* * *

Facebook, Karma decided, was the fucking devil.

It had been the ding of her phone, the sharp little bell tone alert from Facebook - and yeah,  _that_  was the fucking devil - that had started it all. Saved by the bell?

Fuck that noise, Karma thought. Killed by the bell. Broken by the bell.

Fucking  _ruined_  by the bell.

She could have ignored it. She  _should_  have ignored it. She could have ignored the tone. Or she could have just checked her messages, seen the horribly cheesy 'missing you' sticker Liam had sent her (they had seen each other less than half an hour ago and sometimes, Karma was starting to think, the boy just tried too fucking hard.) She could have just seen it, sent back a quick and generic 'you too' and been done.

She could have. And she  _should_ have. The moment she saw that someone had tagged Amy in a photo, she  _should_ have just slapped the lock button on her phone and gone on with her day. She'd only been home ten minutes. She was supposed to meet Liam in an hour.

She thought today might be the day he finally brought her to his place. Maybe her chance to meet his family.

Or maybe just another day of sneaking off somewhere semi-private so he could do his level best to fuck her and she could do hers to not let him.

He seemed to like the chase. She was growing bored with it.

Which might explain why she  _didn't_  click the lock button. Why she went ahead and opened up Facebook. Why she saw that picture, why she read that tag.

_Spending time with_ _**Amy Raudenfeld.** _ _Best. Girlfriend. Ever._

Fucking Facebook. Fucking devil.

It took Karma all of three seconds to recognize the background, to know that was Amy's striped pillow tucked behind their heads, which meant they were in Amy's room.

On Amy's  _bed_.

And Reagan was on the left. Her side.

And who the  _fuck_  had told her that was even a  _little_ OK?

It took Karma all of five seconds to spot the smile on her best friend's face and ten seconds to start wondering why and how and when an Amy smile had become something that hurt her heart.

Maybe it had something to do with the girl that was clearly the cause of that smile. Or the fact that said girl  _wasn't_  her.

It took Karma all of fifteen seconds to push that thought away.

And all of twenty seconds to click on Reagan's profile. Facebook might well be the devil, she thought, but even the devil has his uses.

* * *

Reagan had tried. Really, she had.

In the weeks since Amy had chased her down and they'd fallen together - literally and emotionally - she'd done everything she could to avoid anything even remotely connected to Karma.

Which, given that she was dating  _Amy_ , was something of an uphill battle.

Even with a somewhat strained friendship, Karma was ever present in Amy's life. The photos on the nightstand and the dresser and the wall. The constant texts - and God help her if the sheer volume of texts the two exchanged while they were 'distant' was less than usual - and every story about Amy's childhood that Farrah liked to embarrass her with, and practically every damn thing about her girlfriend before they met.

There was Karma.

Every once in a while, Reagan let herself feel that little bit of jealousy, that little twinge of anger, that aggravation over the fact that, apparently, some girl she'd never met was some kind of free gift with purchase.

Buy a Raudenfeld, get an Ashcroft free.

But every time she felt it - and it really was  _every fucking time_  - she'd glance over at Amy and find her staring. Like she knew what was going on in Reagan's head, like she could read her mind. And every time there was a quick peck on the lips, a squeeze of the hand, a head on the shoulder, or even just that soft warm smile that turned her into a pile of melty goo.

(and when the hell had anyone been able to turn her into goo?)

It was like she knew, Reagan thought, every time. And it was in those moments when Reagan realized that there was a very distinct difference between the Amy in all those stories and photos and memories and this girl before her.

_This_ Amy?

She was  _hers_.

Karma be damned.

So she had tried. Really, truly tried. She'd gone above and beyond, she was sure of that. And as long as Karma remained out there, somewhere, and not an actual presence in  _her_ life, well, Reagan could just keep right on trying.

But, apparently, that wasn't an option anymore. Because tomorrow, she was meeting Karma.

And, suddenly, she found herself wanting answers.

She needed to know things. And she didn't like it.

But she asked anyway.

* * *

Karma had to wonder if this girl had anything better to do with her life. Wasn't there anything going on for her besides Amy? Besides posting pictures on Facebook and showing off her relationship to the world?

The irony of that question eluded her.

She had quickly discovered that Reagan's profile was private which meant she couldn't see much of anything, which would just not fucking  _do_ , now would it?

Amy hadn't changed her Facebook password since 9th grade. Why bother, she said. It's not like I've got anything on there anyone would care about.

Silly girl. Silly, silly girl.

Karma logged onto Amy's account and saw that picture -  _that picture_  - again and clicked quickly on Reagan's profile, hopeful that she could banish that image - and the dozen or so she'd made up in her mind.

Silly, silly girl.

Even when she scrolled down, even when she moved away from that damn photo as fast as her mouse would carry her, all she discovered was another and another and another…

It was a black fucking hole of photos and status updates and comments and likes and seemingly every one - every  _fucking_  one - was about Amy.

What was it they taught in school about black holes?

Nothing escapes.

Yeah, Karma thought, that sounded about right.

She scrolled down, remembering the date when she'd started dating Liam, her own birthday. She knew Amy and Reagan had started seeing each other shortly after that, so this trail of tears would probably start around that same time…

And there it was. The beginning. Patient Zero.

_9/26: Third date with Shrimp Girl. Convinced her to let me post a pic so you all could see she's not really a shrimp. And that I didn't make her up! LOL!_

Reagan and Amy, sitting way too close in a way too dark club and what the hell was Amy wearing, did she even own shirts that low cut?

Apparently, she did.

And what the  _fuck_  was a Shrimp Girl? OK, Amy loved shrimp. But she loved donuts and bacon and horribly long documentaries and Karma, too.

Shrimp?  _Fucking_ shrimp.

That was the beginning. The first drop in what would quickly become a steady drizzle of Amy and Reagan.

_9/29: Hanging with Amy. Her first visit to the apartment. I even cleaned._

_10/1: Met Amy's sister and GBF. Much cooler than she let on. And I don't care what she says,_ _**Lauren** _ _, you're not the spawn of the devil!_

No, Karma agreed.  _Lauren_ wasn't.

The drops kept coming. One after another.

_10/3: Dinner tonight with Amy's parents. Wish me luck!_

_10/3: Dinner was great. Amy's folks are very cool. Farrah even invited me back! Score!_

_10/5:_ Amy and Reagan, reclining on the swing in Shane's backyard, Amy in Reagan's lap, her head resting on Reagan's shoulder, Reagan's arms wrapped around her waist, her lips pressed to Amy's forehead.

_It's official. She asked. I said 'yes'. Reamy is a thing._

The drops had made a puddle. It wasn't deep, yet. But Karma knew that didn't matter.

It was already deep enough to drown.

* * *

"Just ask already," Amy said. "You know you want to."

Reagan was sitting on the edge of the bed, her knees tucked up under her chin. She'd been staring at the photo on Amy's bedside table - her and Karma dressed up for Halloween - for going on five minutes now.

"Am I that obvious?" she asked. She knew the answer, but she tried to delay the inevitable,anyway. Maybe, she hoped, she wouldn't have to ask. Maybe, sometime in the next forty-five seconds, she'd realize it didn't matter and she didn't care and they could just forget this and go back to almost having sex.

Amy walked over and gently lowered the photo face down onto the table. "Talk to me Reagan," she said. :"Whatever it is, just talk to me."

See, Reagan thought. That's why they call it delaying the  _inevitable_.

"I've been trying," she said. "Really, I have. I didn't want to push or pry, I mean it's none of my business, really. You don't go poking around in my past so…"

Amy knelt on the floor in front of her and rested her hands on Reagan's legs. "Your past doesn't have a Karma," she said quietly. She studied Reagan's face for a minute and watched how the older girl refused to meet her eyes. "I've been so fucking stupid, haven't I?"

Reagan did meet her eyes then. "What?"

Amy smiled, but it was rueful and sad. "I've been stupid." She sighed. "I've  _been_ Karma all this time. Oblivious. Not seeing what was right in front of me." She pulled herself up onto the bed and wrapped her arms around Reagan. "All this time I thought keeping her out of this was making it better. But it was just making it better for me." Amy tipped her head resting her forehead against Reagan's. "It's been hurting you, hasn't it?"

Reagan shrugged. Hurt wasn't quite the word for it. "At first, I didn't care," she said. "And then after I found out about… you two… then I was kind of grateful." She slid her knees down and scooted closer to Amy, further into her arms. "But then, after a while… it was like I was competing with a ghost. Except she's alive. And you see her  _every_ day."

"It was never a competition," Amy said.

"Maybe not for you," Reagan said. "And I guess not for her either. But that's only because she didn't even know I existed." She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. She didn't know how to say it. "But I knew about her. And not just what you told me. There's Shane and Lauren, even your mom."

Amy chuckled. "I'm not sure those are the most unbiased sources when it comes to Karma," she said.

"And  _you_  are?" Reagan regretted it immediately, wished she could pull the words back in. "I'm sorry," she said. "That came out wrong."

"No, it didn't," Amy said. She tightened her grip on Reagan and saw a flicker of confusion cross the older girl's face. "You're right. I'm not exactly unbiased. She's my best friend and always has been. Long before I had Shane or Lauren or you, Karma was all I had."

"Is that why you did it?" Reagan asked. "Is that why you went along with her, with faking it?"

Amy tipped her head back so she could see Reagan more clearly. "Is that really what you want to know?" she asked. "I mean, is that  _all_  you want to know?"

Reagan nodded. Then shook her head. Then laughed at her own confusion. "I don't know," she said. "But it seems like a good place to start."

* * *

It was October 26th that undid Karma.

And who the hell was she kidding? She was undone long before then. Somewhere around the third or fourth photo of Amy and Reagan kissing or the fourth or fifth status about how happy Reagan was. Or the sixth or seventh photo of some couples outing with Theo and Lauren and Shane and his "trainer" all captioned with that stupid fucking nickname.

_Apple picking with Shrimps and the gang._

_Checking out the new X-Men with Shrimps and company._

_A night alone with my Shrimps._

But it was the 26th that pushed her over the edge.

She could still see the texts in her mind. If she actually picked up her phone, she was sure the conversation was still there.

_Karma: Hey, Buttface. I know you don't like hanging out with me and Liam together so much, but he got these tickets to this way fancy Halloween party on Saturday night. I guess it's a Squirkle thing. But he's got extra and he's inviting Shane so I was hoping maybe you'd come?_

_Amy: I don't think so. I think I'm just going to hang out at home._

_Karma: Amy… (I'm pouting, just so you know)... please? Pretty please? I promise Liam and I won't be coupley. We won't even hold hands. And you told me the other day you were getting over that, remember?_

_Amy: I know. It's not that. I just don't feel like a party. Besides, I don't even have a costume._

_Karma: We'll buy you one. Tomorrow after school._

_Amy: I'm not spending a bunch of money on some outfit I'm only going to wear once. Just go, Karma. Have fun. I promise, sometime next week the four of us can do something, OK? Just not on Saturday, OK?_

She'd tried for over an hour to talk her into it. Twelve text messages. Only three replies from Amy.

Even Karma could take a hint.

She'd gone to the party with Liam. Shane had refused too, so it was just the two of them. And they'd spent most of the time against the wall, away from the crowd. At one point, Karma had sworn she saw the Squirkle lady from the protest at Hester, Liam's sister.

But then Liam had tugged on her hand and led her to an empty stairwell and well, she'd forgotten the Squirkle lady five minutes later.

On Monday, when Karma told Amy about the party, her best friend had listened with rapt attention, and commented snarkily in all the right spots. When Karma asked her what she'd ended up doing, Amy told her Netflix and donuts and then went to bed early. They walked off from lunch arm in arm and Karma thought that maybe, just maybe, they were making things right again.

So when October 26th came up on Reagan's timeline?

When Karma saw the photo, read the status, and realized what exactly 'went to bed' probably meant?

That was when she knew things weren't ever going to be right again.

* * *

"Why'd you do it?"

It was the question - correction:  _one_ of the questions - Amy had been expecting. And, to be honest, she was a little surprised it took this long to get to it.

"Lauren gave you an out," Reagan . "She told everyone you two were faking and you could have just admitted it." She was snuggled into Amy so the younger girl couldn't see her face, the way her eyes were still locked on that now face-down Halloween photo. "You could have walked away. But you didn't."

"No," Amy said softly. She tangled her fingers in Reagan's hair. "I didn't walk away. I kissed her."

She felt Reagan's grip around her waist tighten a little and, as selfish as it might be, even that little sign of jealousy warmed Amy's heart. She wasn't used to being on this end of the equation.

Reagan was her. She was Karma. That made Karma, Liam.

And that was just all kinds of wrong.

"I know what you did," Reagan said, and there was no anger or hurt in her voice, which surprised Amy. "I just don't know why."

Why? Why not just ask why the sun rises in the morning or why people are so often horrible or why human beings have an appendix.

Amy wished she knew. At least about the appendix part. That had always bugged her.

As for why she had kissed Karma, why she hadn't done the reasonable, logical,  _normal_  thing and just walked away?

Well, she wished she knew that too.

In her head, Amy heard a million different answers. The same ones she'd heard every moment since she'd pulled Karma to her and pressed their lips together.

_I was already in love with her, I just didn't know it. And then my heart acted before my brain could think._

_I never thought it would go as far as it did._

_I didn't think it would mean anything.._

_I wanted to be popular too. I got caught up in the moment. I didn't want to let Lauren win. It was an impulse. A blurt. A momentary loss of sanity._

_I don't know._

Amy took a deep breath and offered up a silent little prayer that she'd find some way to explain it.  _Any_ of it.

"After the kiss, and after I finished freaking the  _fuck_ out about the kiss, I told Shane the truth." Reagan nodded against her. She knew that much. "And he was a great friend and really tried to help me. Back then, I was  _so_  confused. I didn't know if I just liked Karma or if it was girls in general -"

Reagan pressed a soft kiss to Amy's neck. "I think you figured that one out," she said softly and Amy could feel her smile against her skin.

She nodded and tried to continue, tried to ignore the way even Reagan's  _breath_  on her neck caused her pulse to race. "Anyway," she said, "Shane had me over to his house one day. He said he wanted to test out a theory." Amy chuckled at the memory. "He made me watch lesbian porn on the Internet."

Reagan sat up, pushing herself back from Amy. "Wait," she said. "You've watched lesbian porn?" Amy nodded, the blood flushing her cheeks. Reagan grinned and then snuggled back down against her. "Well, now I know what we're doing  _next_ Saturday night."

Amy groaned, though the concept wasn't  _totally_ unappealing. It was just  _watching_ , she thought. It wasn't like Reagan was suggesting they  _make_ lesbian por -

Her cheeks flushed again and she had to blink a few times, trying to drive that particular image from her mind.

"Um…. yeah… so…" She shook her head. "So, I tried to leave, but he told me it was important. He figured if watching that got me as hot as… um…"

"Kissing Karma?" Reagan asked and Amy nodded. "It's OK, Shrimps. I know you two kissed." She pulled herself back again until she could see Amy's face and then she pressed their lips together. It was slow and soft and when she gently nipped at Amy's bottom lip, the younger girl moaned.

When Reagan pulled away, Amy's eyes were still shut and she couldn't quite catch her breath.

"Bet Karma never kissed you like  _that_."

Amy shook her head again and Reagan laughed as she snuggled back up. "So you and Shane were watching the porn…"

Amy took another deep breath, this one a little more ragged than the last. "So, I watched for a bit and it was...OK?" Reagan coughed. " _Fine_ ," Amy said. "It was hot. Shane has excellent taste in porn. Make sure you ask him for some recommendations before next Saturday." She heard Reagan gasp lightly and smirked. "But hot or not, lesbian porn was not fixing my problem. So I told Shane to turn it off. It was ridiculous. Nobody could get into those positions and there wasn't even any plot. There was no point, no meaning."

Reagan laughed and the vibration of it shuddered against Amy's chest. "It was  _porn_ , Shrimps. Most people don't watch it long enough to need plot."

"That's what Shane said," Amy replied. "He said I was looking too deep. I was looking for… how did he put it… Shakespeare in skin. Sometimes, he said, there's not much meaning or point beyond the obvious."

"I always knew Harvey was a wise man," Reagan said with a laugh. "But what exactly does this have to do with you kissing Karma?"

"Everything," Amy said. "Because the truth is, I don't  _know_  why I did it." And that  _was_  the truth. She hadn't known in the moment and she certainly hadn't figured it out since. "And I stopped trying to figure it out. Because it's like looking for Shakespeare in skin. It'll never make any sense and nothing will change it."

"It is what it is." Reagan said.

Amy nodded. "Exactly," she said. "I can't take it back and…" She pulled Reagan tighter against her. "I wouldn't even if I could," she said. "For a very long time, that one moment made my life a fucking mess. But now…"

Reagan leaned back slightly, so she could see Amy's face. "But now?"

Amy looked at her, and willed herself not to let the tears pool in her eyes. She was not going to to cry.

"That one moment helped me realize who I am," she said. "Maybe I would've figured it out eventually anyway and maybe I could have done it with a little less drama and pain." She brought a hand up to cup Reagan's cheek. "But, it brought me Shane. And Lauren, even if I still can't believe I'm grateful for  _that_." She pressed a quick peck to Reagan's nose. "And it brought me you. And if someday we're registering for china patterns and opening joint checking accounts, then I guess it'll all make sense. Or not. But by then, it'll be another hazy high school memory and it won't matter much more than it does now."

Amy finished and watched her girlfriend. The color had drained from her face and she was biting her bottom lip.

And Amy thought back to what she had just said.  _China patterns and joint checking accounts and… oh… fuck…_

She cursed herself in every way imaginable. It wasn't bad enough that she was talking about kissing another girl, she had to go and mention china patterns and joint checking?

Reagan cleared her throat and Amy thought she saw the corners of her mouth twitch up. But that was probably just wishful thinking because she had probably just scared the living shit -

"I  _hate_ china," Reagan said. "It's so fucking pretentious." And now Amy was sure she a smile starting. "Promise me we'll register for something cool like a big screen TV or one of those wine fridges or, oh! I know! One of those full house stereo systems that you can run from any room -"

And as Amy felt her breath come back, she sat up, pressing against Reagan's shoulders and rolled her over onto her back. She slid the older girl's arms up over her head and pinned her wrists to the bed.

Reagan smirked and arched an eyebrow. "OK, No wine fridge." she asked. And Amy growled and brought her lips crashing down onto Reagan's. "But I was serious about the stereo," Reagan mumbled in between kisses. Amy sat back up and glared at her.

"Reagan?"

"Yeah, Shrimps?"

"Shut up."

Reagan grinned up at her and that smile and that light behind her eyes? That was something Amy thought she could stare at forever and be perfectly content. "Make me," Reagan said.

And so Amy did.

And as they tangled themselves together again, all thoughts of Karma and the kiss and all the crap that had followed it faded away in a blur of lips and tongues and hands clutching at sheets.

It was the question Amy had been expecting, though it had taken longer than she expected to get there.

But sometimes, some things were worth the wait.

* * *

_I don't even have a costume._

Apparently, Amy didn't consider a Supergirl outfit, complete with bare midriff - and just when Karma had almost forgotten the sight of her abs - and red leather boots to be a costume.

Just a regular Saturday night outfit then. OK.

And Karma was sure Reagan must have just had a full Wonder Woman ensemble just taking up room in her closet. She must have been so relieved that she finally had a chance to wear it.

And how wonderful for both of them that someone had decided to throw an impromptu costume - sorry,  _outfit_  - party that night. Something that was clearly thrown together last minute. Certainly, if it had been planned in advance, the multi-colored spotlights in the background and the fog machine-pumped haze around Amy and Reagan's legs would have been of a much higher quality.

And was that Shane in the background? How nice of him to blow off whatever plans he had to help Amy and Reagan with this last minute affair.

_Happy Halloween from DJ Reagan and her Shrimp Girl. Hanging at the annual company holiday bash. Thanks for the party,_ _**Crown City Catering** _ _!_

_I just don't feel like a party._

Maybe the feel of Reagan's hands on her hips, fingers splayed up so close to those fucking abs - and how does someone who eats like Amy get abs like  _that_? - and her warm breath on her ear as she leaned in over her shoulder had convinced Amy to be in more of a party mood.

That had to be it, right?

Because Amy wouldn't lie. Not to Karma.

_They_ didn't do  _that_.

At least not before Wonder Woman.

But then, as Karma clicked off Reagan's profile and back to Amy's, she quickly realized there were a lot of things her best friend hadn't done before now.

Like those three little words….

* * *

These were the moments Reagan loved best. Amy's hand in hers, pressed between them, their lips moving softly and slowly against each other. She'd kissed other girls, other girls who were  _good_  kissers.

Amy put every one of them to shame. It wasn't even close. From their first kiss, it had been like their lips had minds of their own, like they each knew exactly what the other was going to do.

Reagan was pretty sure she could kiss Amy forever and never get tired of it.

Scratch that. Not pretty sure.  _Sure_.

She felt Amy shift on the bed, and a shadow fell over her. It wasn't until the sound of the camera shutter on Amy's phone that she realized what was happening.

Reagan popped one eye open and pulled back from Amy's lips. She smiled at the sad little whimper that escaped from her girlfriend. "Did  _you_  just take our picture?" Amy nodded. "Can I see it?" Amy shook her head. "Why not?"

Amy help up one finger and quickly tapped the screen of her phone. Reagan kept trying to lean over to sneak a peek, but Amy kept her at bay. Finally, she finished.

"Check," she said, grinning like a fool. She nodded at Reagan's phone. "Facebook," she said.

Reagan snatched up the phone and opened up the app, quickly spotting the update.

Amy's profile pic. The two of them, mid-kiss, shot with a nice filter and in stylish black-and-white.

"Oooh," Reagan said. "Artsy! I like."

And then she saw the status that went with it.

_In love with_ _**DJ Reagan.** _ _#bestthingtoeverhappentome_

Reagan blinked back tears and swallowed hard. Her fingers trembled slightly as she tapped on the screen.

* * *

_In love with_ _**DJ Reagan.** _ _#bestthingtoeverhappentome_

Karma stared at the screen and wished that black hole was real and that it would swallow her up right then and there.

And then the screen blinked. A comment

_**DJ Reagan:** _ _I love you too, Shrimps. #myeverything_

Karma stared at the screen until the words blurred and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Somewhere in the distance her phone dinged - Facebook, again - and then Liam's ringtone and then his text tone and then and then and then

And then Karma crawled into her bed, not sure if she'd ever leave


	8. Chapter 8

Karma hated Reagan. She hadn't even met her yet, but God did she hate the bitch.

Wait, she thought. Maybe that was too far. Maybe that was a little over the top. I mean, really? She couldn't say she'd honestly  _ever_  hated anyone before. So, maybe hate was too strong.

So she thought for a minute. And she was starting to think that it really was a bit too much.

And then her phone dinged again. Another comment. Another reply to that stupid fucking video.

Nope. Not too strong.

Karma fucking  _hated_ her.

Her phone had been blowing up since yesterday afternoon, since just before she'd crawled into bed and tried to disappear, desperately hoping that sleep might bleach those images and those words from her mind.

_In love with_ _**DJ Reagan** _

Yeah, like there would ever be enough bleach for  _that_.

_#bestthingtoeverhappentome_

It was something, Karma thought, really  _something_  to have your very existence invalidated in a fucking  _hashtag_.

Was there something past hate? Because if there was, Karma was pretty sure she was already there.

Another ding from the phone and she thought, briefly, about chucking the thing through the window. But then she'd probably just keep hearing the ding - ding - ding as it crashed to the ground and then she'd probably just keep hearing it in her head.

Like that story they read in American Lit.  _The Tell-tale Heart._

Oh, the tales her heart could tell right about now.

She could have just shut off the alert. She could have just put the phone on silent or shut the whole damn thing down.

But those solutions were far too non-violent and not nearly masochistic enough for her urrent mood.

Plus, if she was being honest - and since she was only talking to herself, why not try for that, right? - shutting the phone off would be admitting defeat. It would be caving in and acknowledging that the dozens of classmates who were currently taking such joy in her pain had actually gotten to her.

It would be letting Reagan win.

The fact that Reagan didn't even know she was in a fight was totally beside the point.

And what if Amy texted or called? She might. She might see what was going on and feel horrible and want to console her best friend. She might.

And since when did Karma have to think of Amy in 'mights'?

The again, Amy was probably tongue deep in Reagan right about now and,  _fuck_ , if she was going to keep having thoughts like that, Karma was really going to have to reconsider her no drinking before noon policy.

Another ding from the phone and to  _hell_  with this. She needed to get out of here. Away from her room and her house and her bed and her memories.

Getting away from her life would be best, but that didn't seem all that likely. So she snatched up the phone - and  _no_ , she would not  _silence_  it - pulled on a pair of sneakers, grabbed her keys and headed out. She had no idea where she was going.

Oh, but wasn't she still trying to be honest?

Fine. She knew  _exactly_ where she was going.

* * *

By the time someone - some pimple faced, most likely to graduate a virgin freshman - posted the video the day before, Karma was already too far gone to notice. She was burrowed deep under her covers, past the point of crying, unable to sleep, feeling hungover and broken from all the images of Amy and…  _her_ … kissing and cuddling and  _being_.

She heard the ding from the phone. But she just ignored it.

She was good at that. It was, she knew, one of her great skills. Ignoring things. Especially things she didn't want to see or hear or know.

Or feel.

Of course, those things usually came back around to bite her in the ass, eventually. Like confessions on a wedding night. Or lies revealed on a wedding night. Or not telling your parents that you weren't really a lesbian until they found you half naked with a boy in your bedroom while they were supposed to be out with the Good Karma truck.

The video, Karma discovered right around 2 am, was another in a long line of things she ignored that kicked her ass in the end.

She'd finally watched it when the alert tone woke her for the tenth time. Unlike the nine times before, this time Karma couldn't roll over and will herself back to sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Reagan's lips pressed to Amy's skin. The soft, contented look on her best friend's face.

_It's official. She 'asked'. I said yes. Reamy is a thing._

Karma couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take one more minute of that sweet, lovely, fucking romantic movie poster perfect moment playing out on an endless loop on the insides of her eyelids. So she grabbed her phone and decided to see what the hell had half her Facebook friends losing their collective minds.

It  _had_ to be better than what was going through hers.

By the time she was thirty seconds in - thirty  _seconds_? thirty fucking  _years_  - she knew that the next time she closed her eyes it wouldn't be the sweet Reamy forehead kiss she saw.

And she hadn't even read the tags, yet.

It was a crappy video. Whoever the hell had shot it had no clue about filters or angles or even holding the fucking phone steady. The image jiggled and shook and Karma had seen clearer shots when she held her fingers over the camera lens, but she was fine with that.

It was bad enough in blurry, shaky, crap-o-vision. It it had been clear, it might well have killed her.

She knew the Hester hallway immediately, and she picked out Shane and Amy within seconds. Which, she thought, was pretty impressive considering she couldn't see her best friend's face, not because of the blur, but because  _she_  - and that would forever be how she referred to Reagan, she thought -  _she_  had her lips fucking surgically attached to Amy's face.

Karma had seen  _her_  in pictures, obviously, so she knew  _she_  was attractive enough. And by 'attractive enough', she meant  _fucking hot_. Seeing her in motion, all over Amy, pressing them together, their lips moving over each other's, seeing  _her_  step back and then Amy - fucking  _Amy_  - being so aggressive that she chased after  _her_  for another kiss…

Seeing all that did nothing to dispel the  _fucking hot_  description. If anything, it made it worse.

Even Karma, who was so straight you could use her as a ruler - and why did she feel the need to remind herself of that? - found herself a bit flushed watching the two of them. The video ended and Karma still stared.  _Her_ and Amy, faces inches apart, their foreheads resting against each other, the same way Karma and Amy had done hundreds of times.

No, she thought. Not the same way. Even perfectly still, even frozen on the screen, Karma could see it. There was want. Need. Desire. All of it right there between them. It may as well have burned its way off the screen and anyone, even someone well practiced in the art of being oblivious could see it. God, Reagan was practically oozing it.

Not that Karma was looking at  _her_.

Of all the parts of Amy's feelings for her, the one thing Karma had tried hardest to ignore was the attraction. She was a smart girl, she knew that if someone said they were in love with you there were certain other… feelings… that came along with it.

Amy didn't just want to hate-watch  _Twilight_  and bake snickerdoodles with her. That wasn't  _all_  she wanted.

Correction. It wasn't all she  _had_  wanted.

Before she could stop herself, Karma was replaying the video and her mind was wandering. Kissing Amy under the tree by the school. Watching Amy drop her trench coat at the threesome.

_Woah._

_I know._

As Reagan pulled Amy to her on the screen, Karma flashed back to truth or dare. To Lauren asking Amy if she thought about her while she masturbated. To the shock Karma had felt, to the sinking, stunned feeling that had rippled through her, not at the question, but at the thought.

The thought of Amy doing  _that_.

And then Amy's non-answer, which pretty much  _was_  an answer, and the way it made Karma feel a little… funny.

And not just a little wet.

Which wasn't all that different - OK, not different at  _all -_ from how she felt right then, watching that video over and over.

Watching  _Amy_  over and over.

At 2:35 am, Karma threw her phone back down onto the floor, laid back on her bed, pulled the pillow over her face and screamed for all she was worth. She screamed until her throat burned, her lungs cried out for air, and she couldn't see Amy's blurry face or her blurry hands, or her blurry lips chasing after Reagan's.

At 2:37 am, Karma rolled over and prayed silently for sleep.

At 2:42 am, her phone let out one more tiny ding.

At 2:50 am, she rolled over, scooped up the phone, and scrolled through the comments. And it was then that she saw it. The first one, the one that had tagged her and brought this hell to her in the first place.

_Looks like_ _**Karma Ashcroft** _ _isn't the only one moving on from Karmy. Amy's got herself a girl! And she totally got the better end of this deal, cause this babe is way better than_ _**Liam Booker!** _

It was juvenile and stupid and the exact sort of remark Karma had been dealing with ever since she'd confessed. Ever since she and Liam had started walking hand-in-hand through the school.

It was juvenile and stupid and she was totally used to it.

But watching that video? She couldn't help but think it might be true, too.

* * *

Karma had walked through the front door of Amy's house a million times. At least. It was never locked and even if it was, Amy had given her a key long ago.

So why was she standing there, hand over the knob, frozen in place?

She was just going to see her friend. Her  _best_  friend. She was just going to talk to her about things. About how strained their relationship was of late. How much she missed her. How happy she was that they would be at the same party that night, hanging out, just like old times.

And if, somewhere in the course of normal conversation, she happened to mention how inappropriate, indecent, and downright worrisome that video was?

She was sure Amy would understand. I mean, she  _knew_ Amy. And this wasn't the sort of thing Amy did. She was sure once Amy knew about it she'd be mortified. She'd regret getting so caught up in her emotions and in the moment and in whatever damn voodoo Reagan had enchanted her with, that she'd probably cry. And need comforting.

And that was the best friend job description in a nutshell.

So why was she still standing on the front step?

It had nothing to do with the pickup truck parked in front of the house. The one with the giant  _PRIDE_ bumper sticker on the lift-gate.

It had nothing to do with the laughter she could already hear from behind the door. The giggle she would know anywhere and the throaty chuckle she didn't  _want_  to know.

It had nothing to do with suddenly feeling like an outsider in her own home.

_Second_  home. And by home, she meant the  _house_.

She definitely didn't mean anything else. Any _one_  else.

Karma took a deep breath and pulled the door open, stepping inside quickly before she froze again. She paused for a moment in the entryway, hearing the voices from the living room.

_Sister… right upstairs… what are you doing?... fuck…. fuuuuck, Amy…._

If there was ever a time for her to be  _not_  oblivious, to know exactly what was going on in front of her, to use common sense and turn around and run home - or at least step back out and ring the fucking bell - now was that time.

Karma's common sense - and better judgement - had checked out at 2:52 am.

She strode down the hall, walking with a purpose. Phone clutched in her hand, already cued up to that damn video. She turned the corner into the living room.

And what was left of her sanity burned away in one searing image of Amy, in only her bra - and Karma wasn't sure that little bit of fabric really qualified as a bra - straddling Reagan on the couch, the latter wearing Amy's beloved donut shirt, or at least  _half_ wearing it, as Amy had succeeded in pushing it up past the tops of Reagan's breasts, which was where Amy's lips were headed -

and Karma thought she might pass out on the spot.

But instead, she stood there. Totally still. Not making a sound. She wasn't even sure she was breathing as Amy's lips made contact with Reagan's skin and -

"Ashcroft, what the fuck?"

Lauren's voice, from the stairs. Karma didn't even look.

But Amy did. Her head snapped up and around and her eyes fixed on Karma.

And Karma waited for the blush. The embarrassment. The caught red-handed dive under the blankets and cover up, oh my God I might die of humiliation look Amy got for, well, for  _everything_.

Instead, Amy turned to her, not bothering to cover up one inch of bare skin - and oh,  _fuck_ , there were those abs again - and when Karma finally managed to get her eyes back on Amy's face?

She could have sworn she saw the briefest flicker of a smirk cross her best friend's lips.

Just one more thing Karma could never unsee.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This one jumps back a little to give some background on Amy and Reagan's first few weeks, but it all ties up in the end w/the scene where Karma shows up at the house. Thanks again for all the comments and kudos!

__

The first time Reagan met Farrah was… awkward.

Reagan hadn't met a lot of parents. But even her admittedly limited experience was enough for her to know that some things were considered bad form.

Meeting your girlfriend's mom without your shirt on? Not good.

Meeting your girlfriend's mom while straddling her daughter? Also not good. If said daughter's shirt also happened to be elsewhere? And if your hand was lightly resting on said daughter's breast (still safely tucked away in her bra, because it was only three weeks into dating and even lesbians don't move  _that_  fast. Usually.) And if you were nipping lightly on the soft skin of said daughter''s neck and eliciting the most delicious moan you'd ever imagined from her?

Yeah. Awkward.

And also,  _so_ the reason Amy got that lock on her bedroom door.

To be fair, neither girl had expected Farrah to be home. It was three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon and she was supposed to be at the TV station, putting the finishing touches on a heartwarming human interest piece and prepping her forecast for the six o'clock news.

She wasn't supposed to be strolling into her daughter's bedroom like she owned the place.

Which, technically, she did, but that was so  _not_  the point.

And to be fair, again, Reagan didn't see how anyone, even Farrah, could blame her for…  _being_  with Amy as she was. Really, she thought, better and stronger women than her wouldn't have been able to resist that neck. Or those breasts. Or any other part of Amy, particularly not when she moaning like that and -

And thinking about how turned on your girlfriend's moan makes you, while her mother is standing behind you?

Yeah… awkward.

Somehow, and she would honestly never know  _exactly_ how, Reagan recovered quickly, sliding off of Amy and onto the bed next to her - being sure to keep a respectful distance - and pulling the blanket up to cover her girlfriend's almost topless form.

Which, of course, left her equally almost topless - OK, maybe a little moreso, given that she'd worn her skimpiest bra in hopes of something like this (the something with  _Amy_ , not this  _other_ something with Farrah) happening.

"You must be Amy's mom," Reagan said, mentally face-palming herself.  _I'm the half-naked Queen of the Blatantly Obvious._ She shuffled on her knees to the end of the bed and extended a hand to Farrah, making sure it wasn't the, you know,  _breast_  touching hand because that would have taken awkward to heights even Reagan couldn't have brought it back from.

She smiled at Farrah, trying her damnedest to act like this was a routine meet and greet. "I'm Reagan."

She could feel Amy's eyes burning through the back of her skull, but there was no way she was breaking eye contact with Farrah.

Farrah looked at Reagan's hand, up to her daughter's bright red face, back to the hand.

And then, to the amazement of  _everyone_  in the room, she  _took it_. And shook it lightly.

"Farrah," she said (and she was proud that her voice only cracked a little at the beginning). "So very nice to meet you." Propriety and politeness. The hallmarks of any  _real_ lady.

Reagan smiled. "It's so nice to meet you too," she said. "And may I just say, you have a  _lovely_ home."

Amy pulled the blanket up over her head and wished that she would never have to crawl out from under it again.

_Lovely home_ , Amy thought.  _Lovely home? I'm going to die. Either from embarrassment or murder, but I'm not making it out of this room alive._

For her part, Farrah just stared blankly at Reagan. It wasn't just that she hadn't been expecting this, it was that she'd actually gotten  _used_ to not expecting this. She'd thought maybe Lauren, back when she was dating Tommy. But Amy? With someone in her room?

Someone kneeling on the edge of her bed, in an exceptionally tight pair of jeans and some leopard print fabric that she assumed was meant to be a bra? Someone who had, just moments ago, made her daughter make a sound that Farrah hoped to never again have to hear in her lifetime?

Someone who had gotten that kind of reaction out of Amy? Out of  _Amy?_

Someone who  _wasn't_ Karma?

Farrah's mind didn't know how to process that. Any of it. All of it.

She just stared at Reagan for a long moment. Long enough for the younger girl to wonder if she should be making a mad dash for her clothes and then running for her truck, or if maybe a dive out the window would be better...

And then Farrah laughed.

It was less laugh and more snort-slash-cough-slash-giggle at first, and Reagan briefly thought the older woman might be having some kind of stroke - and talk about  _awkward_  - but then it turned into full on body-shaking laughter, Farrah teetering so badly on her heels that she had to lean back against Amy's door for support.

Amy popped up, still clutching the blanket around her, pulling it up to her chin as if her mother had never seen breasts before. As if Reagan's weren't right out there in almost all their glory.

"Mom?"

Farrah held up finger, pausing Amy until she could get herself back under control. The laughter slowly fizzled out, ending in a somewhat bemused 'hmmm' , before Farrah straightened herself up and stepped back out of the door.

"Put your shirts on and come downstairs," she said. "Amy, go to the kitchen, there's some doughnuts on the counter and there should be some soda in the fridge. Reagan, why don't you come sit with me in the living room? We should probably talk."

And so it was that Reagan and Farrah's first meeting ended with the three women talking about everything and nothing over doughnuts and Diet Coke.

And even though she smiled and laughed - more than she thought she would - Amy never stopped blushing once.

* * *

 

The second time Reagan met Farrah, she'd officially been invited.

"My mom wants you to come over for dinner," Amy said. Her back was pressed up against the door to Reagan's apartment and the older girl was trailing soft kisses across her neck - and damn, did Reagan love that spot. It had been three days since they'd seen each other which, apparently, was at least two and a half days more than Reagan could handle.

"Really?" Reagan mumbled against Amy's skin. Her hands slid down the door and onto Amy's hips, allowing her to pull Amy closer, not that Amy needed much pulling, one hand already tangled in Reagan's hair and the other one trailing down her back, getting closer and closer to her ass.

"Yes," Amy said.  _Moaned._ And Reagan wasn't sure if it was an answer to the question or an answer to her tongue swiping against Amy's earlobe. The younger girl's hand clenched on the back of Reagan's shirt as she tipped her head back against the door.

"Guess I made a better first impression than I thought." Reagan slid her arms around Amy's back and let her hands roam up under the blonde's shirt. The feel of Amy's skin against her fingers was rapidly making this conversation impossible.

Amy pulled back - barely - and eyed Reagan. "Are you kidding me?" she asked, her voice hitching slightly as Reagan's nails traced along her spine. "She hasn't stopped talking about you since… you know."

Reagan leaned forward, her lips sliding along Amy's collarbone. "You mean since she walked in on me feeling you up?"

Amy groaned, both from the feeling of Reagan's lips and from her words. Four weeks into this and she was just fine with the  _doing_  of things. Talking about them? That was still a work in progress.

Still, the way Reagan's hand had slid around her body and was now scraping along the skin of her stomach was somewhat…  _inspiring._

"I was going to say since she saw you doing what you should be doing  _now_ ," Amy said, as she pushed Reagan back into the room, steering her to the couch. "Unless you want to keep  _talking_."

Reagan grinned. Slowly but surely, Amy was becoming more and more confident. And that meant she was becoming sexier and sexier, which Reagan hadn't believed was possible.

But, as Amy straddled her and pulled her shirt over her head, Reagan was convinced, yet again, that it should be illegal for someone to be that hot.

"I don't know, Shrimps," she said letting her eyes and hands roam over Amy's newly exposed skin. "Talking is good. I like talking."

Amy leaned down, pressing her lips to Reagan's ear, which had the added benefit of leaving her chest perilously close to the older girl's lips. "I like  _you_ ," she said.

And so it was that, once they'd stopped 'talking', Reagan had agreed to dinner. And so, on a warm Wednesday night in Austin, Reagan found herself sitting between Amy and Bruce, across from Farrah and Lauren, eating spaghetti, meatballs, and homemade garlic bread she had brought with her.

It was, as she posted on Facebook later that night, a great time. And Farrah did, in fact, invite her back.

And when she overheard Amy's mom telling Bruce that Lauren had been right, and Reagan really was a lovely girl?

It was Reagan's turn to blush.

* * *

 

The first time Reagan was alone with Farrah was that same Wednesday night.

To be honest, she'd been expecting it. She might not have met a lot of parents, but she'd heard enough to know that most first meetings - and this was the  _real_  first for them - ended something like this.

Farrah stood up from the table and ushered Lauren, Bruce, and Amy off to do the dishes and clean up from dinner. "I cooked," she said. "And so did Reagan. Now y'all get in there and do your share. And Amy, don't you even think about putting those dishes in the dishwasher without scraping them first."

Amy started to protest, but Reagan cut her off. "You heard your mother, Shrimps. Get in there." She smiled at Farrah. "Us  _ladies_ are going to talk."

Amy opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it, then glared at Reagan as she snatched the salad bowl off the table and headed for the kitchen. Reagan watched her go - she was incapable of  _not_ staring at Amy's ass in those jeans - and then turned to follow Farrah into the living room.

She wasn't nervous, not really. Hell, once your girlfriend's mom had witnessed your foreplay skills, there wasn't much worse that could happen. Still, as she approached Farrah in the far corner of the room, Reagan had a feeling that this wasn't going to be normal chit chat.

Farrah was standing in front of a circular grouping of pictures on the wall. Reagan looked them over and quickly realized that they were all of Amy at various points in her life. Farrah pointed at one near the top of the circle. "That," she said, "was Amy on her seventh birthday. She was so cute,"

Reagan glanced back over her shoulder and saw Amy taking a quick peek at them from the kitchen. She smiled at her and Amy turned back to Lauren who was shoving a serving platter at her.

"She still is," Reagan said softly.

Farrah smiled. She'd had a feeling about this girl, in some ways even before she knew Reagan existed.

Reagan turned her eyes back to the photos. She recognized Amy in all of them, she'd know that face anywhere. But she didn't look the same, and not just in the way everyone looks different from then till now. Amy was different from one picture to the next. In some of them, the youngest ones, Reagan could scarcely believe it was the same girl

The smile was too big. The eyes were too bright.

Looking at those pictures made Reagan's heart hurt but she didn't know quite why.

"She's changed, hasn't she?" Farrah asked and Reagan nodded. "You see those pictures?' she asked, pointing at the pictures of the youngest Amy. "From the day she was born until her seventh birthday." Then her arm swept in a circle, encompassing all the other photos. "And from then until today."

"What happened?" Reagan asked, then quickly realized she might have been crossing a line. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

"I don't mind at all, sweetie." Farrah said, smiling at the girl.. "You see that arm, right there?" The older woman pointed at an arm wrapped around seven-year-old Amy's waist in the birthday party shot, holding her as she stood on a chair to blow out her birthday candles.

Farrah frowned and then sighed. "That's Amy's father."

* * *

 

The first time Amy ever mentioned her father to Reagan was also, for a long time, the last.

They were cuddling under a tree at a park near Reagan's apartment. Two and a half weeks of hanging out - which, loosely translated meant two and a half weeks of cuddling, making out, and texting until the wee hours of the morning - and Amy had already decided that even if they broke up she was still going to need some kind of cuddle privileges.

Making out privileges would be nice too.

And texting. And talking. And, fuck, they just weren't breaking up. Like,  _ever_.

"Tell me something," Reagan said. Amy's head was resting on her shoulder and their hands were laced together in Reagan's lap. "Tell me something you've never told anyone."

Reagan wasn't expecting much. Amy was opening up, a little at a time, but the older girl didn't figure she was going to get some deep revelation.

She was wrong.

Amy shifted slightly, tucking her head further under Reagan's chin. "My father left because of me," she said. "He told me, before he left, that it was my fault."

At that moment, Reagan had an almost uncontrollable urge to find Amy's father and kick his ass.

And then kick it again.

Instead, she squeezed Amy's hand in hers, and kissed the top of her head.

They sat there quietly, cuddled together, until it got dark and Reagan drove Amy home.

* * *

 

Reagan threw a quick glance back at the kitchen.

"Don't worry," Farrah said. "I told Lauren and Bruce to keep her busy for a few minutes."

The younger girl arched an eyebrow. Farrah had planned this?

"Amy's father, Jack, left us six weeks after that picture was taken." Farrah shook her head. Sometimes, it seemed like it had just happened. She loved Bruce and Lauren and the life she had now. But time may heal all wounds.

But healing doesn't always mean  _not_  hurting.

"I'm guessing she doesn't talk about him much?"

Reagan shook her head. "Not with me, at least."

Farrah smiled. "Don't worry, sweetie. I don't think she talks about him with anyone. Not even Karma."

It was the first time Reagan had heard Amy's mother mention the 'other' girl in her daughter's life. She was surprised by the way Farrah said the name. It was not unlike the way someone might talk about sunburn or a winter cold.

Not the worst thing in the world. But not anything you'd really want, either.

Something to be put up with. Waited out.

_Endured_.

"That's her," Farrah said, pointing at a small red-haired girl in the picture. "Little Karma. She and Amy were already best friends. They had other friends back then, a whole little gang of them, but they were always together, already inseparable."

So inseparable, Reagan thought, that in a month of dating, she still hadn't met the girl.

Farrah pointed at the cake in the picture. "Her favorite part of every birthday was blowing out the candles." She smiled at the photo but Reagan was pretty sure she saw tears threatening.

Reagan wanted to reach out. She wanted to tell Farrah that whatever it was she was building to, it could wait. It couldn't be that important.

But Reagan simply stood there, quietly. Letting Farrah get to it in her own way, her own time.

Because, she had a feeling, that it was  _that_  important.

"That year," Farrah said, "I bought her those trick candles, the kind that light back up after you blow them out." She pointed at the picture again. "I took that shot as she was blowing them out for the  _fifth_ time. I'd never seen her face light up like that."

Reagan watched Farrah stare at the photo of her little girl.  _How does Amy not know_ , she wondered.  _How does she not know how much she means to her mother?_

Farrah turned to Reagan, taking one of her hands between both of hers. "After her father left, Amy pulled away. She just… disappeared. And I let her. Even before that, I didn't know how to relate to her, not like I wanted to." She stared at the floor and Reagan squeezed her hand. "She was her father's daughter. She may look like me but she's… all  _him_."

Farrah glanced back at the picture and Reagan saw her eyes darken. "All those other friends," she said, "they just drifted away. And Amy… she just didn't have it in her to try and make them stay. In the end, the only one left was Karma."

"Sounds like she was a good friend," Reagan said.

Farrah nodded. "Whatever other feelings I may have about  _that_  young lady, I will always be grateful for that. She was there for Amy when… when I couldn't be."

Reagan could see the guilt all over Farrah's face and she didn't know what to do. She wanted to hug her, to tell her it was OK, to remind her that Amy had turned out pretty damn amazing and that  _she_  had to have had something to do with that.

But it wasn't her place. Not yet, at least.

Farrah finally pulled her eyes away from the picture. "But even with Karma, Amy was never quite the same. She smiled, she laughed, she had fun. But she didn't light up anymore. She wasn't just going through the motions, but she wasn't trying to do much more than that, either."

Farrah turned and looked at Reagan, who did her best not to flinch under the older woman's gaze.

"If Amy knew we were talking about any of this, she'd kill me." Farrah gave her a little conspiratorial wink, but then her face turned serious again. "I'm not going to to ask you what your intentions are toward my daughter or if you love her. That's none of my business."

Reagan wondered if telling Farrah she was falling hard and fast for her daughter would make this moment any more or less awkward.

"But," Farrah said, "I do want to tell you something. And I hope it means something to you, because it means, well, it means a great deal to me."

"OK," Reagan said, unsure of what else she could say.

"I'm sure you remember the first day we met?" Reagan blushed at the question.

"Yeah," she said. "I don't think I'll ever forget  _that_."

Farrah smiled at her. "Me either," she said. "But not for the reasons you think." She squeezed Reagan's hand. "When the three of sat there, eating donuts and drinking Diet Coke… that was the first time in nine years that I saw  _my_  little girl again. She was bigger and older, obviously. But it was  _her_."

Farrah blinked back tears and it warmed her heart when she saw that Reagan wasn't even trying to hide hers.

"And then there was the moment when I told Amy to invite you for dinner." Farrah smiled at Reagan and the younger girl's heart hurt again, in the best way.

"That moment," Farrah said, "You'd have thought I gave her trick candles all over again."

* * *

 

The day Reagan and Amy said 'I love you' for the first time which was, by Reagan's best recollection the 10th or 11th time she had dinner with Amy and Bruce and Farrah, was also the day of the donut shirt.

After Reagan had tackled Amy onto the bed, the girls had spent the rest of the afternoon making out and talking and making out and talking and making out and making out and making out…

By the time they were done, Amy was quite sure that if Reagan didn't get down to it and make love to her soon, she might well explode. As it was, she was sure Bruce and Farrah would be able to see the frustration and pleasure and just how fucking  _turned on_  she was all over her face.

And when Reagan slipped an arm around her waist while she was standing at the sink cutting carrots for dinner? When she trailed her fingers softly just under the waistband of Amy's jeans and placed one soft kiss on the back of the younger girl's neck?

Amy dropped the knife into the sink, the clattering of metal on metal drawing Bruce's attention from the two bubbling pots on the stove.

"You OK over there, Amy?"

Amy just nodded, unable to trust her voice. And she silently cursed Reagan, who had already moved away, helping Farrah to set the table, and Amy didn't even have to look to know her girlfriend had that damn self-satisfied smirk on her face.

After dinner, the girls cuddled on the couch while Bruce and Farrah puttered around the house doing… well… Amy didn't know what the hell they were doing, she didn't even know what was happening in the movie they were watching, all she  _did_ know was Reagan.

Reagan's hand running casually up and down her leg, a little bit higher each time.

Reagan snuggled into her side, so close there wasn't even room for air between them.

Reagan's lips on her cheek or her neck or her fingertips or her jaw… a new place every thirty  _fucking_ seconds which, Amy thought, was about the length of time she was away from throwing Reagan down and ending this wonderful misery herself.

Finally, Bruce and Farrah headed off to bed, but not before reminding Amy that yes, Reagan could stay (like she wouldn't have snuck back in anyway) but only if Amy's bedroom door stayed open.

Amy nodded. And she meant it. She'd leave the door open.

Once they were actually going to  _sleep_.

Reagan headed up first while Amy stayed downstairs to make sure the lights were off, the front door was locked, and that she regained at least some of her composure. By the time she reached her room, Reagan had already changed and was waiting for her on the bed.

In Amy's donut shirt.

The only material possession Amy even sort of cared about. The shirt she'd once slapped out of Karma's hands at a sleep over.

The shirt that was just barely covering Reagan's thighs and sliding up ever so much higher every time she moved.

"Hope you don't mind," Reagan said, reclining on the bed and gesturing at the shirt. Her smirk made one thing  _very_ clear. If Amy did mind? She was welcome to come take the shirt off.

Reagan was kind of hoping she might.

Amy shut the door and clicked the lock, and Reagan stretched out on the bed in anticipation. But then, much to the surprise of both girls, Amy just stood there, leaning against the door.

The sight of Reagan in  _that_  shirt, did something to her and she didn't quite understand it. It wasn't like Reagan hadn't borrowed clothes from her before. But seeing her there, on her bed, in that particular shirt, the single dorkiest piece of clothing she owned…

It was ridiculous. It was a shirt. A fucking  _donut_ shirt, for crying out loud.

But it was that shirt that finally made it click. Reagan loved her. Not just loved -  _in love_. Reagan wanted Amy the way Amy wanted her. Amy didn't have to feel bad for looking at Reagan and imagining a future, she didn't have to tear herself up inside for ruining things with her feelings, she didn't have to do anything to make Reagan want her to stay.

Reagan already did. She wanted her to stay. She  _wanted_  her. Always.

As Amy stood there, realizing, Reagan watched her, her forehead slowly creasing in worry. She slipped off the edge of the bed and moved to Amy. "Shrimps? You OK? If it's the shirt, I can take it off-"

But then Amy cut her off, crashing their lips together, cradling Reagan's face between her hands. Amy kissed her, slowly and deliberately, with everything she had been feeling all day long, from the relief of telling Karma to the exhilaration of seeing Reagan headed towards in the hall, to the way she'd felt her entire world shift when Reagan said 'I love you',  _all of it_  was poured into that one kiss.

When they finally pulled back, Reagan wasn't even sure she could stand. She stared at Amy, her eyes dark and swimming with need and lust and love.

"It's yours," Amy said.

"What?" Reagan asked. "The shirt?"

Amy nodded. "The shirt," she said. " _My_ shirt. My closet, My bed. My heart." She pulled Reagan to her again, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. " _Me_."

She'd said it already that day, more than once. And she'd say it again the next day and the day after that and the one after that and all the ones after that until Reagan got sick of her.

But right then? At the end of what might have been the happiest day of Amy's life?

She just had to say it one more time.

"I love you."

* * *

 

Amy woke to find herself alone in her bed. She blinked against the dark and felt the spot where Reagan had been. It was still warm.

She hadn't been gone long.

Amy left her bed and made her way into the hall. The light was on in the living room and so she quietly headed down the stairs, careful to avoid the squeaky third step so as to not risk waking Farrah or Bruce, or Lauren if she'd finally come home from her date with Theo.

She spotted her girlfriend in the far corner, near what Reagan liked to call Farrah's 'wall of Shrimps'.

Amy hated the pictures on that wall. Hated the way they seemed to divide her life. It was bad enough that she'd spent so much of her own time thinking of her life in terms of before kissing Karma and after kissing Karma.

She didn't want her life defined by moments anymore.

Especially not ones about her father.

She slipped across the room and slid up behind Reagan, wrapping her arms around the older girl's waist. Her stomach flipped, as it  _always_ did when she first touched Reagan after a separation, even if it had only been thirty seconds apart.

"Hey," she said quietly into her girlfriend's ear. "I woke up and you were gone."

Reagan gently ran her fingers along Amy's arm. "I'm never far," she said. "You know that."

"I do," Amy agreed. "You OK?"

Reagan nodded. "Couldn't sleep. Didn't want to wake you." She was staring at the latest photo on the wall. Amy, Lauren, Farrah, and her, taken the night of their first "family" dinner. "I still can't believe your mom framed that."

Amy rested her head on Reagan's shoulder. "She told it was the first picture in years with me and her together and me smiling."

"She loves you, you know," Reagan said. "Like, a lot."

Amy stepped back and turned Reagan around, into her arms. "I know," she said. "Just like I know there's something wrong." She brushed Reagan's hair back out of her face. "Talk to me, Rea. What's going on?"

Reagan frowned, refusing to meet Amy's eyes. "Its nothing," she said. "I'm just… worried."

Amy took Reagan's hand and led her to the couch, pulling the older girl down next to her. "Worried about what?"

Reagan pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "We've built ourselves this little world," she said. "You and me and Shane and Lauren and Theo and even Duke. But we've just been hiding in it. And now, tomorrow…"

Realization struck. "And now tomorrow is the party," Amy said. "Tomorrow is Karma."

Reagan nodded. "I'm being stupid, I know," she said. "I just can't help feeling like reality's about to set in and everything that's been so perfect is going to… "

Amy slid her legs up onto the couch, one on each side of Reagan. "You don't think Karma's going to change  _us_ , do you?"

Reagan shook her head. "What?" she said. "No."

If she hadn't known how much it had to be killing Reagan for her to even let it show this much, Amy might have thought the little denial was cute.

"Stay here," she said, hopping up from the couch. She dashed back to the other end of the living room, pulling two photos off the wall. She clambered back onto the couch and handed them to Reagan.

One was the picture they'd just been talking about. The other was one of Amy and Karma on a trip to the beach. Matching swimsuits and goofy summer hats, blue sky and perfect water behind them.

Amy pointed at herself in each picture. "Notice anything?"

"You've always looked good in a swimsuit?"

Amy blushed and shook her head. "The smiles, you perv. Look at the smiles."

Reagan did, remembering what Farrah had said to her that night. In the recent photo, Amy was smiling naturally, like she'd been caught laughing at something. It lit up her face and made her eyes look like they were dancing.

The photo with Karma? Amy was still smiling. It didn't look  _forced_ , but you could tell she was thinking snarky thoughts behind those eyes. Reagan figured as soon as the camera shutter had stopped, Amy was probably complaining about sand between her toes and that she was going to get heat stroke.

Amy finally spoke again. "I loved Karma," she said. "And there were times that feeling like that made me so incredibly happy." She took the pictures from Reagan and set them down on the floor. "But most of the time, especially near the end, it just made me miserable. Telling her how I felt should have at least been a relief. But it was more like torture, even  _before_  she rejected me."

Not for the first time, Reagan offered up a silent thank you that Karma was straight or at least too wrapped up in her own head to see what she could've had.

"Loving you," Amy said, "is never like that. Loving  _you_  makes me feel… right. And I know what you're thinking. How can two months compete with ten years. And you're right. It can't." Amy took Reagan's hands in hers. "But the possibility, the  _hope_  that maybe, someday, there'll be ten years for us too?" She brought both of Reagan's hands to her chest. "I haven't felt hope like that, ever. And I won't give it up. Not for anything. Not for  _anyone_."

Reagan slid her knees forward and climbed into Amy's lap, wrapping her arms around the blonde's neck. "You're such a sap, Shrimps."

The jab might have been a little more convincing if Reagan hadn't been blinking back tears.

They spent the rest of the night on the couch, holding each other, neither wanting to separate even long enough to go back upstairs.

* * *

 

Amy woke to purple hairs tickling her nose and soft skin against her own.

It wasn't the first time she'd woken up next to Reagan. And, compared to the last time, the night things had gotten "heated" at Reagan's apartment, she was still fairly clothed. She wasn't sure if she thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Given that they were on the couch in the living room, it was probably good. Bruce and Farrah had been very liberal and very understanding.

Two naked teenage girls on the couch might test anyone's understanding. Even in Austin.

Reagan stirred against her, her arms tightening around Amy's waist. She rolled her head back, blinking her eyes against the sun spearing its way through the half-drawn blinds.

"Morning," Amy said, pressing a soft kiss to her girlfriend's forehead.

Reagan grunted something unintelligible and yawned. Amy found it endlessly amusing that she was dating the one woman on the planet who was less of a morning person than she was.

"I think Bruce and my mom already left for the day," Amy said. She could see a note on the dining room table, which usually meant her parents were off on some shopping spree or golfing or both.

"Sooooo?" Reagan asked, her hands slowly sliding under Amy's t-shirt, nails scratching their way up the younger girl's back.

"So…" Amy said. "I was thinking we could…" Her voice trailed off as Reagan's hand finished its journey down her back, and the tips of her fingers slid beneath the waistband of her sleep shorts.

"We could, what?" Reagan asked. Her fingers slid down even further, tracing tiny circles from the edge of Amy's hip to the curve of her ass. "Have breakfast? Play ping-pong? Bring peace to the Middle East?"

"Get a room?'" The voice from behind the couch snapped them out of the moment. "Preferably one without furniture I have to sit on?"

Reagan's head popped up and she saw Lauren leaning against the kitchen table. "Lolo!" she yelled, bolting from the couch and practically tackling the small blonde in a hug.

Lauren stumbled back a step before wrapping her arms around Reagan. "Hey, Rea," she laughed. She glanced over the older girl's shoulder to Amy sitting on the couch. "Morning, bitch."

Amy smiled. "Morning, skank."

"Whore."

"Slut."

"Tramp."

"Trollop."

Lauren paused and even Reagan turned and eyed Amy. "Did you actually just drop a 'trollop' on me?" Lauren asked. "Who got you the thesaurus?"

Amy stuck her tongue out at her. "I do know a few words, OK?"

Lauren nodded. "I know you do," she said. "But I figured the list didn't get much past your life essentials. You know, doughnuts, Netflix, bacon."

Amy's eyes lit up at the mention of bacon. "Well, if it's essentials," she said. "You'd have to toss Reagan on the list too."

Reagan broke from her embrace with Lauren and pantomimed swooning. "Oh,  _dahling_ ," she said. "You're sooooo sweet." She grinned at Amy. But who are you kidding? We all know all you really need is the doughnuts."

"I do love a good doughnut," Amy agreed. She reached one arm over the back of the couch and tugged Reagan to her by the tail of her donut shirt. "But not as much as I love you."

"So it  _is_  official," Lauren said. "I saw it on Facebook, but you two have actually said the words?" Reagan nodded as Lauren pulled her phone out and tapped away frantically. She let out a little "yes!" as she she finished typing.

"Do I even want to know?" Amy asked, nodding at the phone.

"I was texting Shane," Lauren said. "I bet him fifty bucks you two would 'love it up' before he could get MMA boy to come out of the closet for him."

Amy rolled her eyes. "You were betting on my love life?"

Reagan swung her legs over the back of the couch and dropped back into Amy's lap. "Don't feel bad, Shrimps. I bet him too." She glanced at Lauren. "Tell him he better be ready to pay up tonight."

Amy groaned and shoved Reagan off her lap, mock indignation on her face. She crawled over her girlfriend, bringing her lips within inches of Reagan's. "So you were that confident I was going to say it?"

Reagan leaned up and caught Amy's lips for a quick kiss. "Of course, I was," she said. "I mean, come on. Who could resist all this?" she asked as she waved her hand up and down her body.

"Well  _you_ ," Lauren said nodding at Amy, "better resist until at least I'm out of the room."

Amy stared down at Reagan as she slid her knees up the couch, straddling the older girl. "I can't make any promises,  _Lolo_."

"Ugh," Lauren groaned. "I think I liked you better when you were all chaste and virginal and unrequited." The smile on her face took the sting out of the words. "I am going to up to take a shower and then, dear sister, we are going shopping."

Amy pulled her eyes from Reagan long enough to shoot Lauren a quizzical glare. "Shopping?"

Lauren nodded as she headed for the stairs. "Yup. Shane asked me to help you get a new outfit for tonight. Something flattering. And without food on it." She hurried up the stairs, yelling down from the top. "I'll be ready in fifteen, so don't go starting anything you won't have time to finish!"

"Fifteen minutes, huh?" Amy asked, sliding her hands up Reagan's sides. "Whatever could we do in fifteen minutes?"

"Shrimps…" Reagan said by way of warning. "Don't go getting any ideas."

"I don't have to go get them," Amy said. "I've  _had_ them. Ever since the other night at your place."

Amy's hands gripped the hem of the donut shirt and slowly slid it up Reagan's body, her eyes fixated on every inch of slowly appearing skin.

"You know what my favorite part of the other night was?" Amy asked. Reagan shook her head, the feel of Amy's fingers sliding against her skin making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. "I liked it when we were naked. And all I could feel was your skin on mine." She tugged the shirt up over the tops of Reagan's breasts and the older girl shuddered. "I liked that," she said. "A lot."

Amy sat up suddenly, and yanked her own shirt off in one smooth motion, tossing it onto the floor. She laid down onto Reagan, their stomachs pressing together, their bras the only thing between them.

"Amy," Reagan managed to breathe out. "Your sister is right upstairs." Amy's hands slid up her sides again, stopping just short of her breasts. "What you are doing?" she gasped. Amy sat up a little, making more room for her hands between them, letting them roam across Reagan's chest. "Fuck," Reagan moaned. Amy leaned down, licking her lips as they came closer and closer to the tops of Reagan's breasts. "Fuuuuuck, Amy…."

And then?

"Ashcroft, what the fuck?"

Amy's head, hell, her entire body snapped around. She saw Karma, standing there, by the end of the stairs. She saw Karma while she could still feel Reagan beneath her and  _that_  was a new sensation.

Reagan tilted her head up from the couch, spotting the red headed girl she'd only seen in pictures. And just as she had with Farrah, Reagan recovered first.

"Hey," she said, hands still gripping Amy's hips, which was probably not the best idea, but with Amy on top of her, there was no 'respectful distance' this time.

"You must be Karma," she said. "I'm Reagan."

And that was how Karma met Reagan.

And it was all downhill from there.


	10. Chapter 10

This was  _not_  how Amy had planned it.

OK, so maybe she hadn't planned it. Maybe that was her first mistake. If she'd been smarter, she would have made sure this scenario never played out in any way that was totally in her control.

But since when had anything in her life been in  _her_ control?

So, no, she hadn't planned this. Worried about it? Yes. Feared it? Yup.  _Dreaded_ it? Definitely.

But not planned it. And, honestly, was that really all that surprising? She wasn't the planner, she never had been.

That was Karma's job.

Though, from the look on Karma's face as she stared at Amy and Reagan - mostly at Amy - Amy wasn't entirely sure her best friend had planned this either. At least not that well.

Maybe she should have had a dossier.  _How to Introduce Your Girlfriend to Your Fake Ex /BFF in Three Easy Steps_.

Step one: Don't let your fake ex / bff walk in on you half naked. With your girlfriend's hands on your hips. Her leg pressed tight between your thighs. The taste of her skin still lingering on your lips.

Correction: Step one - lock the  _fucking_ front door.

Yeah, Amy thought. Planning might have been better.

"Hey," said Reagan from beneath her. "You must be Karma. I'm Reagan."

If Amy had thought this wasn't going to end well before, then the dark glare Karma fixed Reagan with pretty much assured her that, no, this wasn't going to end well. This wasn't going to end anywhere in the neighborhood of well.

Fucking Liam had gone better than this was going to.

Amy's only hope was that  _this_  lasted as long as  _that_ had. At least then the torture would be over quick.

Karma hadn't moved even an inch, save for her eyes. Her head tilted slightly as she regarded Reagan. Amy watched as Karma's eyes slid across Reagan's face, then traced the path of her arms, down to her hands, still gripping tightly to Amy's hips.

Amy saw the look. The way Karma's eyes grew just a little wider. The way she swallowed hard and stared, like if she looked long enough and hard enough she could make whatever it was just disappear.

Amy  _knew_  that look.

Shit. Shit, shit,  _shit._

This was the fucking threesome all over again.

"I know who you are," Karma said, still not moving. Her eyes drifted back down to meet Reagan's. "I think  _everyone_  know who you are."

Lauren came down off the last step, leaning against the railing. "And what the  _fuck_ ," she asked "is that supposed to mean?"

Amy sighed. In the last couple of months she'd come to realize that while Lauren wasn't really a bitch, if you fucked with her, her family, or those she cared about, she could cut you in half with just a word.

And Karma wasn't family. And Lauren sure as hell didn't care about her.

Karma didn't even bother to look at Lauren. As far as Karma was concerned, Lauren was an afterthought, an onlooker, an unneeded - and unwanted - third wheel.

"Why don't you ask Amy," Karma said. "Or, better yet, just  _watch_." She held out her phone to Lauren without breaking eye contact with Amy. "Go ahead," she said, nodding at the phone. "It's quite the show."

Lauren grabbed the phone out of Karma's hand, took one look at the screen, and scowled. "It's locked, Ashcroft."

"0614," Amy said, without thinking. She felt Reagan's grip tighten just a little on her hips as her girlfriend recognized the numbers.

Amy's birthday.

Lauren tapped in the code and the video loaded up on the screen. She hit play and watched as Reagan strolled into view, wrapped her arms around Amy, and… well then…

"Damn," Lauren muttered under her breath. She was as straight as they came  _and_  she'd been watching her sister and Reagan make out for almost two months, but still…  _damn._

"Lolo?" Reagan asked.

Karma flinched, her eyes dropping to Reagan but quickly back up to stare at Amy. The question in her eyes was so clear.

_Lolo? They have nicknames? What the fuck universe have I drifted into?_

Lauren rose from the stairs and walked the three steps over to Amy, handing her the phone. "I'd heard the gossip mill yesterday," she said. "But seeing it…":

Amy glanced down at the paused video on the screen, saw herself and Shane and Reagan and the hallway she knew all too well.

She felt her cheeks flush. Like she'd just gotten caught doing something wrong. Like someone had taped her cheating on her math test or letting the air out of Liam's tires.

Amy shook her head. She'd done nothing wrong. Nothing to be ashamed of.

She glanced up at Karma. And she knew they didn't share  _that_  opinion.

Reagan sat up, scrambling onto her knees behind Amy, an arm slipping around her waist, her chin resting on the blonde's shoulder as Amy pressed play on the video.

"Oh," Reagan said. "That's us."

"That's  _you_ ," Karma corrected. Amy looked at her, struck by the way Karma was fixated on the arm Reagan had slung around Amy's waist, the way she was watching as Reagan absently traced little circles on Amy's abs. "That's  _not_  Amy."

Amy felt Reagan's head tilt up on her shoulder and her arm tense around her. She'd only seen Reagan truly pissed off once, after an encounter with a drunken jackass at a catering event. The guy had cornered Reagan out back of the event hall, pressed himself up against her in the alley, made some comment about all she needed was a  _real_ man to fuck the gay right out of her.

It had taken three  _real_  men to carry drunken jackass to his car. And ten  _real_  stitches to stop the bleeding.

Amy gripped Reagan's hand on her stomach and laced their fingers together. She heard, then felt, her girlfriend's breathing even out.

"What the hell are you talking about, Karma?" Lauren said. "That's Amy. I mean, yeah, the video's shit, and they're both a little washed out, but don't kid yourself.  _That's_ my sister."

Karma's eyes finally left Amy as she wheeled on Lauren who, apparently, had finally pushed a little too far. " _Step_ -sister," she said. She glanced back at Amy quickly, clearly waiting for Amy to chime in, to support her, to remind Lauren of her place.

She was going to be waiting a while.

"I know it's Amy," Karma said finally, fixing Amy with a confused stare, even more lost in this new dynamic than before. "I'd  _know_  Amy anywhere. What I meant was, that's not  _like_  her. Amy doesn't do things like…  _that_." She waved her hand at the phone still clutched between Amy's fingers.

"Like what?" Lauren asked. She didn't have patience for Karma's crap on a good day and this one was already not heading in that direction. "Kissing her girlfriend?"

Karma's eyes grew wide and Amy saw it coming. This was the moment. The t-minus twenty seconds and counting moment.

The 'horny parrot' moment. The 'I can't do this' moment. The 'I'm a fucking teenage girl' moment.

The Amy is so royally  _fucked_  moment.

"Kissing?" Karma's voice hit an octave Amy didn't know she could reach. "That's what you call  _that_?  _Kissing_?" Karma laughed, though it came out choked and broken, like a death rattle. "Amy kisses. Amy doesn't do  _that,"_ she said, pointing wildly at the phone. "Amy doesn't do PDA's. Tongue wrestling in the hall. Showing off everything for the leering masses. It's practically fucking porn!"

Lauren took one cautious step toward Karma, and placed a hand on her arm. "No offense to your precious Booker," Lauren said in her calmest, sweetest, down-homeiest voice. "But Karma, honey? If you think that's porn? Liam's not doing his job right,  _at all_."

Reagan buried her face into Amy's neck, trying not to laugh. Amy bit down on her bottom lip to stifle her giggles, her teeth digging in so hard she thought she tasted blood.

"Liam has nothing to do with this," Karma said and Amy had to wonder if that was the first time those particular words had left Karma's mouth in the last year. "This," Karma rolled on, "is about  _Amy._ The girl I know, the one I've known for  _ten_  fucking  _years_ … she doesn't do things like this. Amy doesn't keep secrets from me, she doesn't make out in hallways."

"Apparently," Lauren said, "She does  _both_."

"And that's why I'm here," Karma said. "Because Amy's not acting like  _Amy_." Karma shrugged Lauren's hand off and planted her hands on her hips. "She's clearly not thinking straight. She's  _clearly_  got something going on that she just doesn't know how to handle, she's obviously confused, she's -"

" _She's_ right here in the fucking room," Amy said.

Karma turned to look at her, and Amy could see the blush of anger already starting to fade from her cheeks. This was the second time in two days that Amy had used that tone with Karma. The last time she'd told her to grow the fuck up.

Clearly, Karma hadn't gotten the message.

"Look, Karma," Amy said. "I'm sorr -" She cut herself off.  _That_  word was not leaving her mouth. Not again. "I  _understand_  if you think I'm acting a little...odd." Karma arched an eyebrow at 'odd', but Amy ignored her. "I get that you're pissed I didn't tell you about Reagan sooner. And that you're pissed about the video and the comments people left on it."

Amy slid off the couch, standing on the floor in front of Karma, but she never let go of Reagan's hand.

"I get all that," she said. "But this  _is_  me. I know it's new for you, it is for me too." Amy did feel bad, a little. She'd had two months to adjust to things. Karma had less than two days. "I know you think you know me so well, and you do, but… I guess you've just never seen me in love."

Karma took -  _staggered_  - a half step back and, for a moment, Amy thought she might bolt.

And for the first time ever, Amy knew she wouldn't chase her if she did.

"You've been in love before," Karma said softly, almost whispering it, and Amy knew that was  _her_  Karma, worrying about what Reagan did and didn't know.

"Yeah," Amy said, nodding. "I have. But like I said…  _you_ never saw it."

Karma's eyes dropped to the floor and she let out a long breath. She fumbled with her hands, not quite sure what to do with herself.

The truth really did  _hurt_.

"You're right, Karma," Amy said. The red-head's eyes snapped back up to her friend's face. "I don't know exactly how to handle this," she waved her free hand between herself, Karma, and Reagan. "This is new territory for all of us. I've never had a girlfriend  _and_  a best friend."

Karma's eyes dropped again.  _Girlfriend_.  _Best Friend._

Two. Different. Things.

"But you have to understand something, Karma," Amy said. She dropped Reagan's hand and stepped closer to her best friend. She placed a finger under Karma's chin and tipped the girl's head up. "You have to understand something very, very clearly."

"What?" Karma asked.

"I'm  _not_ confused," Amy said. "Not about this. Not about  _her_." She tilted her head back to indicate Reagan. "I'm in love with Reagan. And maybe that means things are different for us, for  _all_  of us. And I wish that didn't upset you or hurt you or.. whatever." Amy took her hand from Karma's face and moved back, next to Reagan. "But I'm not going to apologize. Not for loving her. Not now. Not  _ever_."

Karma stared at them, at the way they weren't even holding hands or anything but they were still so close, like they couldn't exist if there was even air between them.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I never meant… I didn't want you to…" She shook her head. "Is this what it was like?" she asked. "For you, I mean. When Liam and I started hooking up?"

Amy sighed. Sometimes Karma just couldn't get it, not even when you spelled it out for her.

Amy stepped back to Karma, almost as close to her as she'd been to Reagan.  _Almost_. "No," Amy said quietly. "This is what it was like for me the night my mother got married." Karma paled. "When I knew you'd made a choice."

The message was clear. Amy had made her choice. Karma had to live with it.

She pulled away from Karma, desperate to try and bring this thing to an end, at least for now. With Karma, she knew, there was no guarantee it would ever really be over.

"I'm going to go jump in the shower," Amy said. "And then my sister and I have some clothes shopping to do." She glanced back at Reagan. "You coming with us?"

Reagan shook her head. "No," she said. "I was actually… um…" Amy's face scrunched in confusion. She'd never seen her girlfriend so at a loss for words. "I was actually going to see if Karma wanted to go get coffee? Or something?"

Silence. And  _not_  the comfortable kind.

"Wait," Lauren said finally, because she was apparently the only one in the room who could still speak. " _What_?"

"Coffee," Reagan said. "You know, that thing people do when they're trying to get to know each other without all the...um…" she gestured at Amy, "issues in the way?"

Amy smirked. "I'm an  _issue_  now?"

Reagan shrugged. "I just figured it would be easier than trying to get to know each other at the party with all the music and the drinking and… well… the Shane."

Even Karma laughed.

"So, how about it, Karma? You, me, warm beverages?"

Karma looked at Amy, but her friend was staring straight ahead, stone faced, apparently unconcerned. Which Karma knew was total bullshit.

"Sure, I guess," she said. "We've gotta get to know each other some time, right?"

Amy's face cracked a little and Karma and Reagan both read it for what it was. Worry. Worry that she wouldn't be there. Worry that things would be out of her control.

Karma thought Amy was concerned about what  _she_ might say.

Reagan  _knew_  Amy was worried about how  _she_  might feel.

"It'll be fine, Shrimps," she said. "Karma and I are grown women, more or less. I think we can have coffee without incident." She turned back to Karma. "I need a quick shower. Did you want to wait or should I pick you up at your place?"

"My place," Karma said quickly, unnerved by both the thought of Amy and Reagan showering at the same time and by the thought of being left alone with Lauren. "Do you know how to get there?"

"Amy can give me directions," Reagan said. "Say half an hour?" Karma nodded. "Cool. I'm gonna go get clean." She headed up the stairs. "Oh," she said, turning back. "And Lolo? Make sure you get something to make my Shrimps look hot, OK?"

Lauren nodded as Reagan dashed off up the stairs. She looked back and forth between her sister and Karma. "I'm thirsty," she said suddenly. "And hungry. And  _so_ going to the kitchen."

She moved away, leaving Karma and Amy alone.

"I guess I'll see you tonight then?" Amy said.

Karma nodded. "Yeah, tonight," she said. She turned to go, then paused in the hallway. "Aimes?"

"Yeah?'

"Reagan seems nice."

And then she was gone. Amy stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, savoring that one peaceful moment when the two most important women in her life were OK with each other.

She knew it wouldn't last. But, for now, she knew she couldn't have planned it any better.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry this took so long, holiday and all. This one's long (I didn't plan it that way), very Lauren-centric (cause let's face it, she's awesome), and does another flashback. And for those who have been asking in comments- this is a Reamy fic. I know everybody's diving back onto the Karmy ship after the finale, but I'm sticking with Reagan in this. I just can't do the 'Karma realizes her feelings and Amy immediately dumps Reagan' thing. Hope y'all like it...

Lauren was eleven years old when she heard her mother's voice for the last time.  


She was in a Dallas area hospital standing at her mother's bedside. Three days later, a week shy of Lauren's twelfth birthday, her mother Rebecca died.

Rebecca had been sick for some time, longer than Lauren's eleven year old mind could really process. For three - or was it  _four_? - years, Lauren had seen the inside of every hospital from Dallas to Houston to Fort Worth. Her mother had called it the Great Cancer Tour. Told every new doctor, every new specialist, every new team of nurses that she'd always wanted to tour the state.

Inoperable brain tumors seemed a long way to go for some sightseeing.

The tumors eventually became not only inoperable, but unresponsive. They laughed at chemotherapy. They mocked radiation. They taunted the doctors and specialists and nurses by spreading, moving from brain to liver to lymph nodes to heart.

For three - or  _was_  it four - years, the cancer refused to cooperate. And, in some sick final joke, it refused to just finish the fucking job. It made Rebecca weak, frail, slowly withering like a once proud rose bush after the first frost.

But it wouldn't kill her.

Lauren wanted her mother to live, wanted it more desperately than anything else she'd ever wanted in her young life. And every day that Rebecca held on, Lauren knew was another day she was supposed to be grateful for.

But even at eleven, she was smart enough to know that sometimes even the things we think we want can hurt like a bitch.

The last six months, the last six months of Lauren's eleventh year of life, had been a seemingly never ending cycle of admissions and discharges, of late night ER visits, of supposed -to-be-comforting smiles and reassuring hugs.

A never ending cycle of 'is this  _it_?'

But it never was.

Lauren spent so much time at the hospital that Rebecca and Bruce eventually had no choice but to pull her from school. Not that Lauren noticed or cared. When she had been in class, her body had been there, sure, but her mind?

Fuck. Even Lauren wasn't entirely sure where her mind was.

Eventually, Rebecca was admitted full-time. No more discharges.

Well, Lauren thought, that's not  _entirely_  true. There would be  _one_  more discharge.

She got to the point where she knew all the nurses on her mother's floor. She knew which ones always had candy (Delia), which ones would take her for walks while Bruce and Rebecca met with the doctors (Sandy and Laine), and which ones would hold her hand while she cried (Rosie).

She also knew which ones would sugar coat it and which would rip the fucking band-aid off and tell her the whole ugly truth.

Lauren liked  _those_  nurses better. They reminded her of her mother.

Rebecca wasn't one for glossing over anything. Not even for an eleven year old girl who already had more on her plate than most adults.

"I don't know what your daddy's told you," Rebecca said to Lauren one morning, as her daughter sat on the edge of the hospital bed. "But I imagine it's some bullshit about me being home soon and everything being just fine?"

Lauren nodded. Those were, in fact, the exact words Bruce had said to her the night before, as she was headed to bed.

_Mommy will be home soon. Everything's going to be just fine. Night, night, baby girl._

Even at eleven, Lauren knew when someone was blowing sunshine up her ass.

But she also knew when someone  _needed_  to do it. Not for her. But for themselves.

"Laur, honey," Rebecca said. "I'm not coming home." She stared at her daughter with eyes that had once danced but now were tired and fading. "But you knew that already, didn't you?"

Lauren nodded again. She hadn't  _known_ , not until right that moment, but she'd had an idea. An idea she'd been content to let Bruce's sunshine cover up.

"Your daddy's a good man, Laur." Rebecca coughed and the force of it shook the bed under Lauren. "But sometimes, he's a fucking idiot."

Lauren smiled in spite of herself. She knew her mother didn't mean anything by it, and she knew just as well that Bruce himself would probably be the first to agree with his wife's assessment.

Not that he ever disagreed with Rebecca on much of anything.

Lauren often wondered how exactly her parents had ever found each other, much less actually gotten married and had a kid. Bruce was a down-home, redneck, right-wing Texas charmer who hated confrontation. Whenever he and Rebecca  _did_  fight, which wasn't often, he insisted they go down to the basement so the neighbors wouldn't hear.

Rebecca? She was as blunt as a hammer, took no shit from anyone, and loved being a  _part_  of the world, not just  _in_  it.

They shouldn't have worked. Fuck working, they shouldn't have made it past their first date - a rodeo, Bruce's idea, of course - and they shouldn't have fallen in love.

But, somewhere between the first bucking bronco and the post-rodeo mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone, Bruce had fallen so hard, so fast, that he told his brother later that night that he'd met the woman he was going to marry.

Which was fine with Rebecca. After all, she'd told Bruce the same thing right before she kissed him so long and so hard - with a tongue Bruce thought should have been registered as a weapon - that he dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

Even at eleven, Lauren knew she would never be satisfied in life if she had anything less than what her parents had.

"He doesn't think you should be here, you know," Rebecca said to he daughter once the coughs passed. "He thinks it's too hard on you. He doesn't think anyone your age should have to go through this."

That didn't surprise Lauren much. Bruce had always wanted to shield her. The longest, and nastiest, fight he and Rebecca ever had been about that very subject. Rebecca wanted to tell Lauren she was Intersex.

"She's five," Bruce had argued. "She's too young."

"She needs to know," Rebecca had replied. "She needs to know who she is. She needs to know that's the only thing that matters.  _Who_  she is. Not  _what._ "

Eventually, Bruce had let Rebecca have her way. He almost always did.

Rebecca reached out and took Lauren's hand in hers. Her skin was cold and Lauren could feel every bone beneath it, but she didn't flinch at the touch.

"Your father would do anything to protect you," Rebecca said. "He wants to keep you safe and never let anything or anyone hurt you." Her voice cracked with every word. "And sometimes," she said, "I think he really believes that's possible."

Lauren stared down at her mother's hand in hers. And she knew her father couldn't have been more wrong.

"You know we don't care about you being Intersex, Laur." Lauren's head snapped up. She didn't hear the word often, not even from her mother. "It's never mattered to us, not even a little. But you father… he thinks it will matter, to everyone else And he's probably right, it probably will matter. But it  _shouldn't_."

Lauren had learned a while ago that  _shouldn't_ and  _didn't_ were often very different things.

Rebecca squeezed her daughter's hand as tightly as she could. "I need you to remember this, Lauren.  _What_  you are means nothing.  _Who_ you are is  _everything_."

She leaned forward as best she could, bringing her other hand up to cup her daughter's cheek. And Lauren wondered, not for the first time, if this would be the last time her mother ever touched her.

"You don't ever hide, Laur, you understand me?" Lauren could hear her mother - her heatlhy, vibrant, fuck 'em all mother - coming through. "You never hide. You never take shit from anyone. And you find those people who know that different doesn't mean less. The ones that know that you're  _more._ Not because you're different, but because you're  _you_."

Lauren nodded. She brought her hand to Rebecca's, cradling them both against her cheek.

"You find those people and you hold onto them. You love them and they will love you."

Rebecca smiled at her daughter one more time. One  _last_ time.

"And you never,  _ever_ hide."

* * *

 

His name was Billy. He was Filipino - not that it mattered, but he was the first 'different' from her person Lauren had ever known - and his family moved to Dallas in time for Billy to start fifth grade.

Lauren met him on the second day of school. And though they were never friends, never even anything close to it, she knew who he was. She saw him in the cafeteria or study hall or playing baseball during PE.

She knew him to say hi. To smile at him in the hall between classes. To let him help her when she dropped her books and he bent down to scoop up her math notebook.

She knew him when she returned to school after Rebecca's death.

While she'd been gone, her district had gone through some reorganization, restructuring, re-some-fucking-thing-or-other, and Lauren now found herself in a brand new school. Only six of her classmates - Billy included - had been shifted to the new school with her.

It was a fresh start, Bruce said. "Think of it as a chance," he said. "A chance for you to be whoever you want to be."

He said  _who_. Lauren heard  _what_.

Be  _whatever_ you want to be.

As if being an Intersex pre-teen about to hit puberty without a mother and having to start over at a brand new fucking school wasn't just  _the_  ideal fucking thing to fucking be.

Lauren had clearly inherited her mother's flair for profanity.

She had also, apparently, inherited her mother's ability to realize things quickly. Because it took Lauren less that a day to learn the first, and most important lesson of her new school.

She  _could_ be whoever she wanted to be. But, really,  _want_  had very little to do with it. It was all about  _need_.

By the end of second period, Lauren had stopped thinking of it as 'school' and more like the  _Hunger Games_  without the bloodshed. At least so far.

But, she figured, the day was still young.

Her old school, the one where she'd met Billy, hadn't been some liberal oasis of blue in a sea of red, but compared to this place, it might as well have been. In her old school, being different had been… well… it had been different.

Sure, even there, if your version of different meant smoking like half a pound of weed a week, or getting hammered and falling off of your roof while your friends videotaped you, or getting caught up in some hippie commune leftist cult, well then you were fair game.

It was still Texas, after all.

But different hadn't automatically equaled bad. It hadn't immediately translated into being ostracized or shunned.

But here? Lauren learned quickly that here, if you stood out?

You went down. Hard.

By the end of third period, she felt like she'd been sucked up into a low-budget remake of  _Mean Girls_ , except every girl - and quite a few of the guys - was Regina George, or trying to be, if only to survive. Because one slip meant that speeding bus was going to run you down in the street.

Lauren saw a pretty little blonde girl with flowers and turtles on her dress reduced to tears over a bad haircut. (Though, in fairness, the buzzed sides wouldn't be in fashion for another few years.)

Another girl, a petite brunette who Lauren was pretty sure could've slid under a classroom door with room to spare, ran from her fourth period math class when another girl said she was 'too fat to live.'

And then came the assembly. Then came Billy.

The entire student body filed into the gym for a special assembly. There were to be awards given out to some of the new students who hadn't , in the shuffle of changing schools, received their due recognition at the end of the last school year.

Billy was the fourth student to be called up. He won a special honorable mention certificate for his science project on the life cycle of spiders. As he'd made his way to the front of the gym, he'd spotted Lauren, someone he knew. He smiled.

Lauren looked at the floor.

She saw Billy again a few hours later, right after art class. He was walking across the quad area, with a teacher on one side and a woman - Lauren assumed she was his mother - on the other.

His eye was black, his lip was cut, his pants were torn.

That night, as Lauren sat on the end of her bed staring at the bottle of her pills on top of the dresser, she thought of Billy.

They'd beaten him up. Over a  _certificate_  for a science project.

She stared at her pills. She was Intersex. To people around here?

She  _was_  a science project.

Lauren saw it very clearly then. She had only two choices. She could blend in, disappear, do just enough to get by.

That way, she knew, led to fear. To spending every day living in terror that someone, anyone, would spot her, that she'd suddenly show up on  _their_  radar. And once that happened, how long would it really take before someone found out what she was?

As she sat there on the bed, Lauren heard her mother's voice.

 _What you are means nothing. Who you are is everything_.

Easy for  _her_ to say.

But Lauren knew. She knew her mother was right. What she was  _didn't_  matter. Just as long as it stayed a secret.

And that was why she knew she had to take option number two. Because blending in wasn't good enough. Disappearing still meant she could be found.

And  _that_  just wouldn't fucking do.

The next day, Lauren walked across campus with her head held high. She shot daggers at anyone that came near her. She mocked a teacher or two, verbally dressed down three girls over their 'slutastic' wardrobe choices.

And then she bumped into Biily.

"Hey, Lauren," he said. "It's nice to see you back. I'm sorry about your mom-"

She cut him off by slapping the books out of his hand. As he bent to pick them up, she sauntered by him, 'accidentally' grinding one heel into his hand, ignoring him when he yelled out.

She was being watched. And she watched them all back. The look in her eyes said only one thing.

_Fuck with me at your own peril._

Within a week, she'd become the queen. Within a month, she'd broken enough hearts and lives that no one gave going up against her even a second's thought.

She was blending in. She was disappearing.

She was hiding in plain sight.

And at night, when it got quiet? When her own breathing was the only sound she heard?

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hear her mother's voice anymore.

* * *

 

The first time Lauren heard her mother's voice again, the first time in a  _very_  long time, was the morning after the wedding.

She thought it might have been because, for once, she was quiet. For the first time since Billy, there was silence around her. She'd avoided silence for as long as she could remember, actively done everything she could to never be alone, never quiet. She slept with her iPod on, she let Lisbeth ramble on for hours on end about shit no one - no one in their right mind, at least - cared one whit about.

Fuck, she'd dated Tommy just for his mindless prattle.

But, sometimes, silence was unavoidable. Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried, she still ended up alone, with just her thoughts.

But even then, for a very long time, she hadn't heard Rebecca.

Or, maybe, she just hadn't been listening.

That, Lauren knew, was far more likely. That, and it might have had something to do with the  _other_ thing she'd heard, the night before.

The sound of her sister's heart breaking. The sound of Karma devastating Amy in a way Lauren hadn't realized one person could do to another.

Or, maybe, it had something to do with her own onrush of guilt as she realized Amy hadn't been faking after all.

It was that guilt - that and an odd sudden protective urge that she refused to think about or analyze - that had led Lauren to try and help. She'd brought Amy cake. Yeah, she knew cake was a pointless gesture, Don Quixote flailing against the windmill of heartbreak. Cake wouldn't make Karma suddenly feel the same way. Cake couldn't make Karma see that Amy was everything Liam was not, in all the good ways.

Cake couldn't un-say those words.

_It's no big deal. Right now, you're just confused._

_Just not like that._

_I slept with Liam._

Hell, Lauren knew the cake was more for her than Amy. What did they always say? It's the thought that counts. Cake was Lauren's thought. A small gesture to maybe bring five minutes of happiness - OK, five minutes of  _less_  massive suck - to Amy's life and to assuage a little bit of her own guilt.

And since she couldn't exercise that protective urge by kicking Karma's ass, no matter how tempting the thought was, cake would have to do.

They ate their cake together in relative quiet. The caterers cleaning up in the background. Their own thoughts about the evening loud enough in their own heads.

_Tommy's an asshole._

_Karma's a bitch_.

They were right on both counts, Lauren thought. And cake, as good as it was, didn't make Tommy less of an ass or Karma less of a bitch. So when Amy had finally staggered off with cake crumbs in her hair and half a bottle of champagne clutched in her hand, Lauren had let her go.

They could deal in the morning, she thought. What else could possibly happen tonight? There was, literally, nothing either of them could do to make this any worse.

Lauren eventually made it up to her room, hit play on her iPod, and fell asleep in her dress.

The next morning,  _this_  morning, she woke to silence. She'd forgotten to plug the iPod charger in and the little gadget that had kept her sane for so many nights was just sitting there on the table next to her bed. Dead.

It was still too early for the sun. Too early for the birds, for Farrah,for her father, or for Amy.

And that was when she heard it, for the first time in a very long time.

_You don't ever hide._

Twelve hours later, she stood in her garage, Tommy duct-taped to a chair, and she heard entirely different words

_Why would I tell anyone that my girlfriend's a dude?_

And suddenly, hiding wasn't an option anymore.

But that night, after Shane and the others had promised to not tell anyone, Lauren slid into her bed, clutching her iPod.

She left it off. Went to sleep in silence.

And didn't hear a thing.

* * *

 

It was the drama club auditions. That was what did it. That was the moment.

The moment when Lauren realized that she couldn't hate Karma.

How could she? They were too much alike.

She watched Karma settle into the chair on the stage. Watched as the redhead prepped for her dramatic moment.

Lauren rolled her eyes.

Here it comes, she thought. Some melodramatic bullshit about how hard it is for her. Some sad sack load of crap about her hippie-dippie parents, her broken lesbian love affair, her popularity washed away.

 _Washed away in my sister's tears, bitch_.

Lauren never mentioned to Amy that she'd thought that. She barely even acknowledged it to herself.

Lauren wondered, briefly, if it would help her cause if she tore Karma a new one right then and there. If she called her out on all her bullshit, if she shredded her heart like she had done to Amy's.

She knew she could. Lauren was like America at the end of World War II. She had  _the_ bomb.  The kind of bomb found in an empty box of morning after pills.

But she had promised Amy… but still…

But then Karma started to speak, except she wasn't rambling on about her parents or her brother, or her 'break up' with Amy.

She wasn't just speaking. She was  _fucking confessing_.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Karma Ashcroft had just outed herself, and not in the good way.

And she wasn't done.

_I can be a really insecure person and I hate that part of who I am._

_Desperate for approval. 'Like me! Like me!'_

_Cause if you like me… then maybe I'll like myself._

Well. Shit.

Lauren had never wanted or expected to understand Karma or, quite frankly, to give a flying fuck about her as anything other than an appendage to her sister. Until that moment, Karma had been nothing more to Lauren than the lying, faking, so desperate to land the hottest guy in school that she'd fuck over her own best friend  _bitch_  that Lauren had heard the night of the wedding.

Until that moment, when Karma had gone up there on that stage and laid herself bare, knowing full well the hate that was headed her way,  not fearing the scorn or  the condemnation that was going to land on her doorstep.

Well. Shit.

Lauren watched Karma come back to her seat. She expected there to be joy behind the other girl's eyes, the thrill of knowing that between that little performance and her singing (and where the hell had Ashcroft been hiding  _that_  set of pipes?) she'd practically assured hersefl of the drama club spot.

But Lauren didn't see any of that. All she saw were the eyes of a young girl who couldn't quite process what she'd just done.

Eyes that looked all too familiar.

And then it was Lauren's turn. And there was 'Fuck you, I've struggled.'

And there was her mother's voice.

 _You never hide_.

And then there was a crash and she turned. And saw Theo.

Lauren closed her eyes. And when she opened them, she saw Karma. And she saw strength and courage, the kind that might only last for a moment, but the kind that had been there nonetheless.

And she couldn't speak and she couldn't make the words come up and out of her throat and she couldn't find a way to do it, to say it.

And she couldn't hear her mother's voice.

 _That_  was the moment. That was the moment when Lauren realized she  _could_  hate Karma.

After all, they were  _nothing_  alike.

* * *

 

Lauren was the first of Amy's friends - and did they really qualify as that? - to meet Reagan, but it was by default, really. She lived with Amy, and since the blonde had been smart enough to schedule their first date for a night when Farrah and Bruce were out - and Amy was still upstairs  _freaking the fuck out_  - Lauren had to answer the door.

She stared at the girl on the other side of the door all flannel and tight jeans and funky hair.

And OK. she'd admit it. Amy had picked a hottie.

"You must be Reagan," she said.

"And you must be the spawn of Satan."

Lauren had to bite back a grin.  _Bitch has balls_. "Please," she said. "Satan's  _fears_  me." The 'and so will you' was left unsaid, but Lauren figured Reagan looked smart enough to pick up on subtext.

"Well, lucky for your sister, I don't scare easy." Reagan stepped through the door, sliding past Lauren. "Is she ready?"

Lauren rolled her eyes and shut the door. "Nope," she said. "She's upstairs having a little freak out. First date jitters you know." Lauren stepped around Reagan, and led her down the hallway to the living room. "And since this really is her  _first_  she's probably…" She trailed off as she realized what she'd said. "I probably wasn't supposed to mention that."

Reagan arched one perfectly-on-point eyebrow. "That's OK," she said. "I've been lots of girls firsts."

Lauren glared at her.

"OK," Reagan shrugged. "Not  _lots_." Lauren raised one not-quite-as-on-point-but-still-effective eyebrow. "OK," Reagan sighed. "Not any." She settled down onto the couch. "But don't tell Amy that," she said. "I need to maintain my aura of mystery."

Lauren bit back a laugh until the older girl grinned and she was sure Reagan was joking. "So…" Lauren said, dropping down onto the other end of the couch. "Amy says you're nineteen?" Reagan nodded. "So, what  _exactly_  does a nineteen year old want with a sixteen year old sophomore?"

Reagan shrugged again, the purple tips of her hair sliding across the shoulders of her leather jacket. "Well," she said, "for one, she asked me out. And, as hard as this may be to believe, that doesn't happen all that often. And, for another…" She shrugged again. "Have you  _seen_  Amy?"

Lauren rolled her eyes.

"I should probably check on her," Lauren said. She got up from the couch and headed for the stairs. She paused on the bottom step and glanced back at Reagan, who was jiggling one knee nervously and fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

_A hottie. And just as much of a dork as Amy._

Her sister knew how to pick 'em.

Lauren bounded up the stairs and through Amy's door without so much as a knock. She found her sister pacing back and forth, though she was only actually moving two or three steps in either direction.

"Your date is here," Lauren said. Amy stopped mid-pace.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath. "Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_."

Lauren plopped down on the bed and rolled her eyes,  _again_. "I'm pretty sure even lesbians don't do that on the first date," she said. When Amy didn't crack a smile or even  _look_ at her, Lauren sighed. "What's wrong?"

"There's a girl downstairs," Amy said. "A hot girl." She paused and then did look at Lauren. "Did she look hot?" she asked. "Tell me she didn't. Tell me she looked all busted and butch and scary."

Lauren shrugged. "If I swung that way, I'd have probably jumped her."

Amy's face paled and her jaw moved up and down, but no sound escaped.

"Sorry," Lauren said. "Forgot I was being supportive." She grinned at her flailing sister. "She looks horrible. Scary. Like she bought her clothes at the thrift shop and not the cool one from the Macklemore song."

Amy shook her head and sat down on the floor. "She could be down there in a fucking garbage bag and still be hot," she said. She ran a hand through her hair which, to Lauren's great annoyance, still looked fucking fantastic. "What the hell am I doing?" Amy asked softly.

"Well," Lauren said, "right now you're having a massive freak out while your hottie date waits downstairs." She slid off the bed and sat across from Amy. "What's really going on, Raudenfeld?"

"I'm going on a date." Amy said. "With a girl." The look on Lauren's face told Amy that her sister clearly didn't grasp the significance. "I'm gay," she whispered. "I'm a  _lesbian_."

Lauren remembered, just in time, that she was trying to be supportive (though she really had no idea why) and held back a laugh. "I thought that fact was pretty well established," she said. "You know, with the whole in love with Karma thing. Or the being repulsed by sex with Booker thing. Or the making out with hot Brazilian chick thing."

Amy shook her head. "Karma was… different," she said. "That was just about  _her_. And being repulsed by Liam, well, that would happen to  _anyone_ with taste, right?" Lauren nodded, she couldn't argue with that. "And the Brazilian girl… that was just making out. Hell, straight girls do that all the time now. It's like the cool thing. Like getting your ears pierced or listening to One Direction. It's  _in_."

Lauren had both ears pierced,  _twice_ , had every One Direction CD - and the concert DVDs - and she'd never once had the urge to stick her tongue in another girl's mouth.

Maybe she just wasn't cool.

Nah, she figured, that  _couldn't_  be it.

Amy was still rambling on. "A date is different," she said. "A date is like… a future, maybe. It's one step from a relationship and that's one step from commitment and that's one step from marriage and a family and spending your life with someone and now I'm doing all that with a  _girl_."

"Maybe," Lauren said, "before you start picking out china patterns and knitting baby beanies, you should, you know, go on  _a date_?"

Amy stared at her. Just stared.

Lauren sighed. "Look, Amy," she said. "I understand that you're nervous. Believe me, every time I meet a boy and it starts getting serious and I remember… what they don't know about me, I feel the same way." She scooted across the floor so she was right up in Amy's face. "But there's a girl downstairs who said 'yes' to you. To  _you_. And if going out with her makes you a lesbian, well, there's worse things to be in this world, right?"

Amy nodded. Slowly.

Lauren fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. "Someone very smart once told me that  _what_  you are is nothing. All that matters is  _who_  you are." She let out a deep breath. "And you are, somehow - and believe me, I did  _not_  see this coming - one of the cooler people I've ever known." Amy's eyes widened. "And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll kill you."

There was a long moment when Amy sat there, silently staring at her and Lauren worried - briefly - that the girl had gone catatonic. But then… "You don't suck either," Amy said, quietly.

And they both laughed.

Amy stood up slowly, extending a hand to Lauren and helping the smaller blonde back to her feet. "I'm really doing this?"

Lauren gave Amy's hand - the one still clutched in her own, and how the hell had  _that_  happened - a soft squeeze.

"Yeah," she said. "You are."

Amy nodded once and then headed for the door. She paused for a moment and then turned back toward Lauren, taking two quick steps across the room and sweeping her sister up in a hug.

Lauren went stiff, for a moment, then slowly relaxed, even wrapping one arm around Amy's back.

"Sorry," Amy said, breaking the embrace. "It just seemed…"

Lauren nodded. "It's fine," she said. "Just don't make a habit out of it." She put her hands on Amy's shoulders and turned her back to the door. "Now go," she said, giving her a gentle shove in the back. Amy headed out the door and down the stairs.

Later that night, after Amy had finally come home - two and a half hours  _late_  - grinning from ear to ear, Lauren climbed into bed. She reached for her iPod, fingers ghosting over the controls.

And then she set it back down, pulled her blankets up under her chin and went to sleep, in silence.

* * *

 

Somewhere between that first date and the morning Karma showed up in the living room like some masochistic voyeur, something had changed between Amy, Reagan, and Lauren.

Lauren couldn't put her finger on it, she couldn't identify the moment when it had happened.

Probably because there was no  _moment_. It wasn't like in the movies where the main character has a sudden epiphany and figures everything out. Life didn't work that way.

Live was slow. Gradual. Like the song said, Lauren figured. You can't hurry love.

No matter what kind of love it is.

For the first couple of weeks after that first date, Lauren paid little or no mind to Amy and Reagan. Yeah, sure, she liked the older girl. But that was to be expected. Reagan was pretty much the definition of likable. She was a charmer, she was funny, and she seemed genuinely interested in Amy.

Plus - and this was the biggest and best selling point to Lauren - she  _wasn't_  Karma.

But, Lauren figured, odds were good Reagan wouldn't be around long. She was a rebound. She was a temporary fix, a needed life experience, a growth opportunity for Amy.

But she wasn't endgame. Karmy, Lauren knew, was Amy's OTP.

Of course, the key word in all that was  _pairing_.

It takes two to tango, Lauren thought. And she'd seen Karma at the drama club auditions.

Bitch couldn't dance.

By the middle of the third week, Lauren noticed that Reagan was still around. More than that, she seemed to be settling in, like she wasn't leaving any time soon. And something else was different.

 _Amy_  was different. She was… smiling? She seemed… happy?

Come to think of it, it had been at least fifteen days - eighteen?  _nineteen_? - since Lauren had heard Amy crying at night.

 _And_  come to think of it, it had been at least that long since Lauren had seen Karma around the house.

Near the end of that third week, Amy knocked on Lauren's door and actually waited for Lauren to say 'come in' before she barged through. So, among other things that Lauren preferred not to think about, Reagan was apparently teaching her manners.

Amy stood in the doorway, hemming and hawing and stumbling over her words until Lauren had finally had enough and told her to get to the fucking point already and then Amy rushed out  _would-you-want-to-go-to-dinner-with-me-reagan-and-shane-tomorrow-night?_  so fast that Lauren thought the taller girl might black out.

Well of course she  _wouldn't_. And the fact that Amy was even asking just proved that Reagan hadn't taught her enough yet.

And that would all have been true if Lauren's mouth, apparently on leave from its relationship with her brain, hadn't opened up and said 'yes'.

Her brain checked back in long enough to ask 'it'll be just us, right? No… ?' And somehow Amy had gotten the point - so  _clearly_ Reagan was clearing the Karmalized fog from her sister's brain - and Amy nodded quickly.

So, by the end of the third week, Lauren decided she really did like Reagan, and hoped she'd stick around. But what shocked her, what made her pause and wonder just what the  _absolute fuck_ was going on, was when she realized that not only did she like Reagan.

She liked  _Amy_  too.

Liked her enough to chat with her on the way to school in Bruce's car. Enough to sit with her at lunch and go to the mall with her - only so Amy could go to the used bookstore tucked into the far corner of the far end of the shopping center where nobody else ever went - or flop on the couch and make fun of whatever doc-u-crap her sister was watching.

Enough to start referring to Amy as 'her sister'.

But only in her head of course. Never out loud.

 _That_ happened halfway through the fifth week. She said it out loud to Shane while yelling at him to stop asking Amy questions about Reagan's tongue and scissoring and every other dumbass lesbian fetish-related topic in his brain.

Amy had stopped dead. Paused with a forkful of mashed potatoes - and fuck all, that girl could  _eat_ \- halfway to her mouth. She looked at Lauren for a brief moment, her head tilting sideways. Then she smiled, a little one, and shoved the potatoes in like she was afraid someone was going to steal them from her.

They never did speak of it. Other than the next morning, when Amy tried out a tentative 'sis' and both girls gagged a little before dissolving into giggles.

And now she was  _giggling_  with Amy. And what the fuck was wrong with her? Lauren Cooper did  _not_  giggle.

And then there was the shopping trip to Dallas, which meant one fucking long ride from Austin in Reagan's non-air-conditioned pickup, the one with the actual  _tape deck_  and the one tape of Billy fucking Joel and who the  _hell_  was Billy Joel?

When Lauren walked back into the house late that evening, humming  _Uptown Girl_ , Amy just laughed.

I told you, she said. That shit gets in your head.

That night, Lauren followed her normal nightly routine. She brushed her teeth, twice. She laid out her outfit for the next day, only changing the blouse twice, which showed remarkable restraint on her part. She brushed her hair - 100 strokes on each side - and then climbed into bed.

She fell asleep with  _Uptown Girl_ running through her head.

* * *

 

The day Karma treated Amy and Reagan like her own personal peep show, Lauren heard her mother's voice, one more time.

 _And you find those people who know that different doesn't mean less._  Y _ou find those people and you hold onto them. You love them and they will love you._

She heard Karma leave, heard her tell Amy that Reagan seemed nice, and then Lauren slipped out the back door, scampered around the house, and found herself just a few feet in front of Karma, on the sidewalk.

The other girl had her head down, not watching where she was going, and Lauren had to clear her throat to get her attention. Karma's head snapped up and her eyes widened for a moment.

"Jesus, Lauren," she muttered. "I didn't even hear you. You're like Satan's fucking ninja."

Lauren made no move to get out of Karma's way. "Satan's afraid of me," she said, remembering when she'd said those words just a couple months ago. "And you should be, too."

She wasn't banking on Karma being able to pick up on subtext.

"Are you threatening me?" Karma asked. There was a little fear behind her eyes, but mostly anger. Which, given when she'd just gone through with Amy and Reagan was probably not surprising.

"I'm giving you some advice," Lauren said. "If you fuck this up for Amy… if you even  _think_  about fucking this up for Amy… I will drop a bomb on your life so big, all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put your shit together again."

"Sounds like a threat to me," Karma replied. "And Humpty-Dumpty? Really?"

Lauren shrugged. "You like fairy tales," she said. "I figured I'd speak to you on your level."

Karma glared at the blonde. "So, what? You think you're Amy's protector now?" She arched an eyebrow - a seriously not even close to on point eyebrow - "Or is this about Reagan? Maybe you've skipped a pill or two and decided you kinda like it on the other side of the fence?"

Lauren's glare faltered, only for a moment, but a moment was  _enough_.

"Yeah, that's right," Karma said. There was anger in her tone, and though Lauren knew that wasn't about  _her_ , she also knew she was the closest target. "I remember your little secret, Lauren. So maybe you ought to be a little more careful about who you threaten."

Karma shoved past her, but only got a step or two before Lauren grabbed her by the wrist and spun her back around.

"You think I care, Ashcroft? You think I give one silly little fuck about what you know about  _me_?"

Of course Karma thought that.  _Lauren_ thought that.

"You can tell the world, for all I care, Karma," Lauren said. "You can take out an ad on the school Tumblr or have your boyfriend pay to have skywriters fly overhead. I don't care."

Her grip on Karma's wrist tightened and she pulled the redhead closer.

"You've done enough damage to my sister," she said. "So if you think, for one second, that I'm going to let you-"

" _Let_  me?" Karma asked. She yanked her wrist free and rubbed the spot where Lauren's fingers had dug into her skin. " _Sister?_  You and Amy get along for a couple of months and you're suddenly sisters? Where the hell were you for the fifteen years before that?"

"Better question," Lauren said. "Where were you the night you broke Amy's heart? Or where  _would_ you have been if Shane hadn't opened his mouth and wrecked all your little lies? Where would you have been while Amy was crying and trying to drown herself in bottle after bottle of champagne?"

Karma glared at her, but there was nothing to say.

"Maybe Amy and I don't have ten years of friendship," Lauren said. "But sometimes, Karma, all being that close with somebody does is make it easier for you to hurt them."

"What the fuck would you know?" Karma spat. "Have you ever had a best friend? Have you ever had  _friends_?"

"You're right," Lauren replied. "I don't have friends. But I do have  _family_."

Karma snorted. "You think a piece of paper that ties your father and Amy's mother together makes you and her family?"

Lauren shook her head. "No," she said. "I think our choices do. And my choice is to protect  _my_  sister." She took one last look at Karma as she turned to go. " _You're_  the family  _Amy's_  chosen, Karma," she said. "Try not to let her down again. Because if you do? You'll find out really quick that Satan's got nothing on me."

* * *

 

Lauren slipped back into the house. She could hear Amy's voice upstairs, and the sound of the showers -  _shower_  - running and so,yeah, she was staying downstairs.

She leaned against the kitchen counter. It was quiet. She hadn't really appreciated quiet in a very long time.

And then she made a choice.

She tugged her phone out of her pocket and hit 'three' on her speed dial. "Hey, Theo?" she said when the boy finally picked up. "It's me. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to be shopping with Amy. But I need to talk to you. No, it's nothing bad, it's just… something I should have told you a while ago. Can we meet? Our spot? Half an hour?"

Theo agreed and Lauren hung up the phone. She dashed off a quick note to Amy.

_Have to meet Theo. Need to tell him about… you know what. I already got you an outfit for tonight. It's in the back of your closet, behind the trench coat. Tell Rea I hope her coffee with Karma goes well. Call you later._

_Love you,_

_Lolo_

Lauren paused and looked at the paper.  _Love you_.

The pen hovered over the word. She could cross it off. She could throw the paper out and start over. Or text her.

Lauren sighed and dropped the paper on the counter where she knew Amy would find it.

Never hide, she thought.

Never  _again._


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks everyone for all the kudos and comments! This one is all about Reagan, a little flashback to the night she came to get Amy for their first date and to her other two girlfriends. Next chapter, I promise, will be a two-fer: Amy and Reagan's first date AND coffee with Karma.
> 
>  
> 
> .

If there's one thing Reagan knows about herself, it's that she's badass.

Not that she feels it right now, mind you. Not sitting here in her truck in the Raudenfeld-Cooper driveway.

That's what she's been doing for the last five minutes. When she arrived - five minutes ago - she was fifteen minutes early for her first date with Amy. So, she waited. She didn't want to be too early, didn't want to seem too anxious.

Anxious isn't badass.

Sitting alone in her truck, knee jiggling at what feels like about 100mph beneath the steering wheel, fingers tapping out a morse code SOS on the gear shift?

Oh, yeah. That just  _screams_ badass.

Her hand leaves the gearshift and grabs the keys, still dangling from the ignition. She hasn't been spotted yet. She can still go.

She can still run. Or drive, you know, seeing as how she's  _still_  in the truck.

_Start the car, Reagan. Start the car, throw it in reverse, and off we go._

It's not like she'd ever have to see Amy again. Standing her up wouldn't be  _totally_  embarrassing. It's not like she'd have to face the blonde again the next day at school.

Seeing her again in the first place was just dumb luck. An accident of fate and timing and a DJ cart run amok.

Only one small problem. Reagan doesn't believe in luck. See, luck doesn't get you out of the house, or get you your own apartment, two jobs that can actually pay your bills, or give you crazy good DJ skills by the time you're nineteen.

Luck doesn't give you hot blondes with your same dorky sense of humor who actually seem, you know,  _into you_.

_You can still go. It's not like you'll ever have to see her again._

_So, yeah. Go._

But she knows that if she goes, she's going to have to do it while ignoring that pain in her heart, the sharp stick jabbing into her chest at the very thought of never seeing Amy again which, quite honestly scares the shit out of her.

She's terrified at the thought of never seeing Amy again.  _And_ the fact that thinking about that hurts this much, this soon.

"I am fierce," she says. "I am badass."

She stares at the house and then drops her head to the steering wheel, banging her against it.

"And I'm talking to myself and totally fucking gone over a girl I've seen in person twice," she mutters into the wheel. "Two times. Two  _fucking_ times."

_Yeah. Badass. That's me._

Reagan lets go of the keys because, let's face it, she's not going anywhere (including, apparently, to the Raudenfeld-Cooper front door). She's thirty some odd feet away from Shrimp Girl - who sometimes also goes by Amy, you know - and she honestly can't think of anywhere she's wanted to be  _this much_  in a very long time.

Which, again - in case you forgot - is what's scaring her. That's what's kept her in the truck for five - check that,  _seven_ \- minutes.

Her phone buzzes in the cup holder and for a moment she thinks it's Amy. For the last seven days, it almost always  _has_   _been_ Amy. They've texted every day and night since the club, and they've actually  _talked_  on the phone for something like twenty hours over the last week.

And, if she's this far gone after a few hundred text message and a few hours of phone calls?

Then, badass or not, Reagan knows - she's  _fucked_.

She starts to reach for the keys again, but pauses, then makes a sharp turn for the cup holder and snatches up her phone instead. She ignores the text - probably something work related -and hits 'one' on her speed dial without looking, tapping the speaker button and waiting through the rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey, daddy," she says. "It's me."

* * *

If there's one thing Reagan knows about herself, it's that she's badass.

How could she not? For three years, it was drilled into her every morning.

"Repeat after me," her father would say. "I am fierce. I am badass. I am out, I am proud. I am a  _motherfucking queen!"_

If they'd ever met, Reagan's father and Lauren's mother would have  _loved_  each other.

The  _motherfucking_   _mantra_ , as Reagan came to call it (but only in her head) became their morning routine when she was fifteen, starting the day after she came out to her father.

Her father, Martin, would wake her up and, once she had shuffled angrily into the kitchen - because even fifteen year old Reagan was anything  _but_  a morning person - she would sit at the table and he would begin.

"Repeat after me," he'd say, as he poured her cereal or made her eggs or buttered her toast.

And repeat she did. Every day for three years, until the day she moved out.

And the first week she lived in her own place? Martin called her on the phone every morning.

"Repeat after me," he'd say as soon as she'd answer.

It was  _their_  time, and Reagan loved it. Her mother lived across town and Reagan saw her once a month, maybe. Her brother Glenn was overseas in the Marines and her father worked two - or more jobs - just to put food on the table. He worked long hours and spent more time out of the house than in it.

But he always made sure he was home for breakfast, always there to send her off to school.

The breakfast was, as a rule, horrible. The cereal was stale (neither of them ever remembered to go get a new box). The eggs were runny and the toast was always -  _always_ \- burnt. Sometimes, there was OJ, but usually it was water out of the tap or a cup of coffee so strong Reagan wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep again.

But none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he was there. He was  _always_  there.

Even if only to remind her how badass she was.

* * *

Reagan stares at Amy's house, her eyes boring so hard into the front door that she's almost a little surprised it doesn't suddenly explode.

"So, what's her name?"

She chuckles, not in the least surprised that her father knows exactly why she's calling, but she doesn't give him the satisfaction of caving in immediately. "How do you know there's a 'her'?" she asks. "Maybe I just called because I miss you."

"Rea, it's a Friday night," Martin says. "And the only reason you wouldn't be catering some hoity-toity party or DJ'ing tonight is if there's a girl involved."

Reagan hadn't had a Friday night free of catering or DJ'ing in over a year.

So, yeah, maybe he's got a point.

"Amy," she says softly. "Her name's Amy,"

She can practically hear his smile over the line. "And I'm just guessing here, but you're supposed to be meeting her soon or picking her up and - again, just  _guessing_  - you're freaking out a little bit?"

Reagan loves her father. But damn, sometimes he's too smart for his - or  _her_  - own good.

"Why would I be freaking out?" she asks, hoping he doesn't notice the way her voice pitches just a little higher. "I've been on dates before. It's no biggie."

Dates. Right. She's been on dates. Four of them, if she remembered correctly.

One with Anna. Three with Shelby. And then it was all relationships and togetherness.

Until it wasn't.

"Let's see," Martin says and Reagan can see him rolling his eyes at her. "Wasn't your last date just about…" His voice trails off as she imagines him doing the mental math. "How long  _were_  you with Shelby?"

One day too long, as it turned out.

"OK, you've made your point, old man," she says. "So, how about instead of making me feel bad for my recent lack of a social life, you help me out a little?"

Martin's laugh came across the line and for a moment, Reagan was back in their kitchen eating stale cereal or runny eggs or trying to find a piece of toast that wasn't burned past the point of having flavor.

"Alright," he said. "Repeat after me…"

* * *

Reagan came out to her brother first, in a letter. It was easier that way and it felt like something of a practice run. Glenn was half a world away so it would take some time and that was good because, really, she needed a little time.

It wasn't that she needed to get used to being gay, she'd adjusted to that. She'd known since was thirteen and, somehow, had just always been fine with it. There'd been no struggle, no self-loathing, no confusion.

She didn't need time for herself. Everybody else?

Yeah, she was gonna need a minute.

So, she'd picked Glenn as her guinea pig. She'd mailed him a letter, knowing that he would understand that she wanted him to  _write_  back, not email or Facebook or Face Time. She wanted pen on paper. It was more personal.

And it would take longer.

It took about two weeks longer, to be exact. Two weeks for her letter and Glenn's response to make their ways across the oceans and deserts and back again. And, by the time Reagan had torn open the envelope with her name scrawled on it in Glenn's barely legible attempt at cursive handwriting, she had come to grips with someone else knowing the one thing she had ever kept a secret.

The letter inside was simple.

_Hey Short-Stuff. Glad everything's going well. Thanks for the letter. Send cookies next time. Miss you guys._

_Love, Glenn._

_P.S. You should call Anna Marquez, from down the street. She told me once at a party that she thought you were hot. She was probably drunk, but whatever._

_P.P.S. Try not to steal all the hot babes, OK. I'm not going to be gone forever._

Reagan had laughed herself silly reading and rereading the letter.

And she called Anna Marquez a week later.

* * *

Reagan rolls her eyes and groans at the phone. "Seriously,dad? You think I haven't already tried the 'motherfucking mantra?" She leans her head back against her seat and shoves her free hand, the one not holding the phone, into the pocket of her leather jacket.

It's easier to keep from grabbing the keys that way.

"I've said it a hundred times," she says. "And I'm  _still_ sitting her in my truck and trust me, I feel anything but fierce."

Martin was silent for a moment and Reagan thinks she might have dropped the call. But then… "You like this girl, don't you?"

Reagan shrugs, forgetting he couldn't see her. "I guess… I mean…" She sighs and taps the phone against her forehead in frustration. "Yes," she says. "I like her. I think I could…  _really_ like her."

"Why?"

Reagan stops and stares at the phone. Why? Why?

_Why?_

"I don't know," she says. "She's just… she's hot, like  _really_  hot." It's the first thing to leap to her mind, but even as she says it, Reagan knows Amy's hotness is way down the list of why she likes her. "And she's funny. She's like this total dork, like me. The first time I met her, she ate like twenty shrimp off my platter at a party. And she's shy. It's like she has no idea how awesome she is."

_And yeah. She's fucking hot._

"So… if this Amy is all that," Martin says, "why are you still in the truck."

Reagan lets out a deep breath and stares up at the front door again. Amy's up there. Right behind that door. Sixty steps away.

"You know why," she says softly.

And he does know why. And so does Reagan.

* * *

Anna was the training-wheels girlfriend, the first try at actually being with a girl. And Reagan knew, right from the first kiss.

It would never last.

It wasn't that Anna wasn't great, because she was. And it wasn't that Reagan didn't like kissing her, because she did. A lot.

A lot a lot.

But there was something missing and they both knew it and they were both fine with it. Anna really did like Reagan and just hanging out with her (and the kissing and the other...stuff… didn't exactly suck) and Reagan got a little bit of a thrill out of dating an older girl - Anna was all of sixteen and a half - and she really liked having someone she could talk to, someone who had already navigated the potential messes of coming out.

Which is why, when Anna told Reagan that she just  _knew_  her dad was going to be OK with it, Reagan listened. Though, to be honest, she'd never once thought her father would have any real problem with. Not with her sexuality.

But everything that came with it? Like, the rest of the idiotic homophobic world? The rest of  _Texas_?

That might worry Martin.

Her father wanted nothing more than for his children to be happy, healthy, and safe. Before Reagan came out and the 'motherfucking mantra' became a morning staple, breakfast had always been accompanied by CNN on the thirteen-inch color TV in the kitchen. And Martin would stop talking every time a report on the war came on the screen.

Reagan didn't get it at first. It wasn't like Glenn was going to be on the news, like he was at a football game with his face painted up and holding a John 3:15 sign in the stands. And if something had happened to him, if it turned out that he was going to be gone forever….

That would be a ringing doorbell. That would be men in perfect pristine uniforms.

And if Reagan knew that, then certainly Martin knew that. But he watched anyway, cutting off conversation in the middle of a sentence if he heard 'war' or 'Iraq' or 'Afghanistan'.

"I know we won't see him," he said one morning. "I know we don't even know where he is, exactly. But…" He shrugged and sipped at his coffee. "But… it's all I can do."

It was a week later when Martin walked into the kitchen one morning and found Reagan and Anna sitting at the table, waiting. He was more surprised that Reagan was up first than he was at Anna's presence - because, come on, he wasn't  _that_  oblivious - and he sat down without turning on the TV.

It took Reagan five minutes. Five minutes of rambling and metaphors about the heart and spirits and unconditional love and so much touchy-feely bullshit that, finally, even she couldn't listen anymore and she just blurted it out.

"I'm gay" she said. "Anna's my girlfriend. I like girls. Like, a lot."

Martin looked at her, then at Anna, then back to her.

"OK," he said. He stood up, crossed the kitchen, flipped on the TV and turned on the burner on the stove. "I'm making eggs," he said. "Anna, would you like some? Or maybe some toast?"

* * *

"Rea?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something?" After a beat, Martin takes her silence as agreement. "Rea, honey, this Amy… she's not Shelby."

Reagan squeezes her eyes shut and counts to five.

"I know," she says. "But… at the beginning? Shelby  _wasn't_ Shelby either."

* * *

If Anna was the training-wheels girlfriend, then dating Shelby was like taking off the training wheels and hopping on a Harley the next day.

And Reagan quickly discovered she liked to ride. A lot.

But, the trouble with riding, she discovered, is that sometimes you crash.

Hard.

And, after one year, four months, two weeks, and six days, Reagan had thought she was safe. No need for a helmet.

Not that it would've helped anyway.

"How long?" she asked. "How long has it been going on?"

Shelby had just shrugged, mumbled something about eight months. Maybe nine.

"If I hadn't walked in… if I hadn't found you and  _him…_ would you have ever told me?" Then she shook her head. "No, I don't want to know." She stood up from the bed, suddenly conscious of where she was sitting and what she'd just seen on it and she just couldn't be there anymore.

Reagan paced across the room, found herself staring out the window. "Did I… did you…" She didn't even know how to ask, wasn't even sure what she wanted to know. "Was I always just a way to make him jealous?"

And Shelby had shrugged - again - and Reagan hadn't wanted to just rip her fucking arms off so maybe she'd have to answer. But then she'd said it - no, not at first, but then it  _did_  make him jealous and then they started up again and before she knew it, it had been going on so long that she just couldn't find a way to tell Reagan and really, she did care about her and never wanted to hurt her…

Reagan was grateful Shelby had never  _wanted_  to hurt her. If she'd  _wanted_  to, it probably would've killed her.

"So, what, for the last eight months… sorry, maybe  _nine_ … you've been with me out of what? Obligation?" She glance back at the bed. The bed she and Shelby had…. and, oh, God… it was all so clear.

"He got off on it," she said. "You'd fuck me and then tell him and …"

She thought she might be sick. And when Shelby didn't disagree, when she didn't say so much as a  _fucking word_ , Reagan knew it was true.

"What was I to you?" she asked. "Did I mean  _anything_?"

Yes. Of course. Shelby wasn't a monster. She hadn't been sleeping with Reagan and cuddling with Reagan and holding Reagan and saying 'I love you' to Reagan  _just_  to give her boyfriend a little homemade Viagra.

But, in the end, she just wasn't gay.

She'd thought, maybe, at first. But she grew out of it.

It was just a phase.

* * *

Reagan reaches for the keys one more time. She can't do it. She can't risk it. Not for Amy. Not for anybody.

"Rea?" Martin's voice is soft and warm and Reagan wishes he was here, right now. "I know it's hard, Reagan. I know it seems like it's just too much."

Her hand catches the key, her foot presses down on the brake.

"But baby, sooner or later, you're going to have to try again."

Later. Later sounds very good.

"And someday, maybe even tonight, you're going to find the girl who falls just as hard for you as you do for her." Martin knows his daughter. He knows how close she is to running. And he knows, if she runs this time?

She might never stop.

"I can't…." She's barely whispering. "I can't go through that again."

"Rea, I don't know this Amy girl. But I knew Shelby." Reagan hears the anger that still rolls through her father's voice every time he says her name. "Rea, she was a bitch from the word 'go'. I knew it. Your brother knew it. Hell,  _you_  knew it."

Yeah. She did. But Shelby was beautiful. And sexy. And into  _her_ , or so she thought. And that was enough.

Right up until it wasn't.

"Think about this Amy girl for a second, Rea." Martin says. "What's the first thing that comes to mind?"

_There are no… boyfriends… around me… right now…._

Reagan smiles. Amy had been so beautiful in that dress, so clearly  _not_  one of those people, and even though she'd basically gone insane at the party, it had been days before Reagan had gotten Shrimp Girl out of her mind.

Mostly out of her mind. Sort of.

"The first time I met her," she says. "And she walked away and I didn't know if I would ever see her again and all I could think… I didn't think about kissing her or being  _with_  her or anything like that…"

"What did you think of?" Martin asks.

"That I didn't get to  _know_  her." Reagan says. Her foot eases off the brake. "I didn't get to talk to her or find out what she likes to do or if she's into bowling or if she really loves shrimp or just free food in general." Her hand slips off the keys. "I didn't even know her name..."

"Rea?"

Reagan smiles and laughs, just a little. I'm fierce, she thinks. I'm badass.

She pulls the keys from the ignition, swings open the door, and steps out of the truck. "I gotta go, dad," she says. "I'll call you later."

She hits 'end' before Martin can say anything.

_I'm fierce._

She starts up the driveway.

_I'm badass._

She tucks her phone in her pocket and straightens her jacket.

_I am out. I am proud._

She reaches the front door and, pauses, a finger over the bell, and then she's pressing down on it, and waiting. She's not running. She's not running. She's not.

Though if somebody doesn't hurry up and open the fucking door…

And then, as if on command, it swings open, a petite blonde stands in the doorway, staring art her with judgemental eyes.

"You must be Reagan," Lauren says.

Reagan smiles.  _I am a motherfucking queen._

"And you must be the spawn of Satan."

_._


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N: Sorry this took so long. It went places I didn't expect. As promised: Reamy first date / Reagan + Karma coffee. It's a bit on the long side and half fluff and half angst so...Enjoy!** _

Amy doesn't think of herself as having led some sort of freakishly sheltered life.

Hell, she just spent weeks pretending to be a lesbian, came out on local TV, was named Homecoming Queen, and nearly had a threesome.

Sheltered probably wouldn't be altogether accurate.

But, beyond those recent… exceptions… there's still a lengthy list of things Amy's never done.

She's never bungee jumped. And, contrary to what she's told Karma, she really doesn't want to. Diving off a perfectly good bridge and trusting her life to something called a 'bungee'?

Thanks, but she's good.

Now, if maybe she could talk Liam into it…

She's never run with the bulls. And, if she wasn't crazy about the bungee jumping, then being chased down curvy cobblestone hills by pissed off goring machines is even lower on her list.

But, again, there's Liam…

Amy has never cheated on a test, though her Biology class is threatening to end that streak. She's never driven her mom's car without permission, though Karma has. She's never shoplifted, gotten a speeding ticket, kissed someone who knew she wanted to, or spray-painted a highway overpass.

She's never been on a date.

Until tonight.

Well…. wait… that's not  _exactly_  true. She's been on  _one_  date.

With Karma.

It was their two-week anniversary - their  _fake_  two-week anniversary - and it was their first and last date. Karma had insisted on the entire thing, on going out, on planning everything, on picking up the check.

"It's all for you," she said.

It's the least I can do, she said. It's the least I can do for my best friend who's so committed to helping me that she outed herself to her own mother.

Amy had nodded and smiled - and when you're friends with Karma Ashcroft, you do that  _a lot_  - and thought that if Karma  _really_  wanted to do something for her, the  _very least_  she could do was shut the fuck up about Liam fucking Booker. If not all the time, then at least during their anniversary dinner.

And when she caught herself actually using the word 'anniversary', Amy had realized, yet again, how truly fucked she really was.

To her credit, though, Karma had gone all out. Reservations at a nice (peanut-free) restaurant. A new dress that showed just enough leg and  _more_  than enough cleavage to make Amy glad she'd agreed to the stupid date in the first place. She made sure Amy wore something appropriate, all the while ignoring Amy's protests that any place where a doughnut shirt and bacon sweats was 'inappropriate' was not the kind of establishment they should be frequenting.

There were flowers on the table, shrimp on Amy's plate (and, months later, oh the irony), and a slow, hand-in-hand walk home in the moonlight.

And when paparazzi style pictures of their 'date' showed up on the Hester Tumblr the next morning? Karma was appropriately shocked and outraged.

How dare they, she cried. Invading our privacy that way. What levels of snooping did they have to do to even  _find_  us?

Amy might have bought it if Karma could have wiped the shit-eating grin off her face even once during her protests.

Actually, Amy still wouldn't have bought it. She knew Karma too well.

So, if she doesn't count that one night - and she  _really_  doesn't - then this is her first date.

And, to Amy, dating might as well be Calculus being taught by Greeks speaking Latin.

So far, and it's been fifteen minutes  _tops,_  she's avoided doing anything… well… anything  _Amy_. She made it through walking down the stairs without tripping (though there was a slight moment of foot-stuck-in-carpet but nobody saw that. She  _thinks_.). She made it through shooing Lauren upstairs before she said anything (else) embarrassing, through telling Reagan how beautiful she looks without (obviously) drooling, and even though smiling without blushing when Reagan returned the compliment.

And that took all of three minutes.

Hell, that was three more than she thought she'd last, so…

As she had followed Reagan out to her truck, Amy had focused on her feet, making dure every step was true. The last thing she needed was to face plant on her own driveway.

Plus, staring at her own feet kept her eyes off Reagan's ass. Which, Amy had quickly discovered, was a lot harder to do than she had expected.

She suddenly found herself feeling a little kinship with Liam.

Amy had slid into the passenger seat which, given the outer appearance of the truck, was shockingly comfortable. Reagan had crossed around the truck and climbed in behind the wheel. She turned to Amy and offered a smile, a far less polite and far more real, grin than she'd had back in the living room.

"Hey, Shrimp Girl," Reagan said softly, as if she hadn't said hello before. Not  _properly_. "I'm really glad we're doing this."

And that, seven minutes into her first ever date, was when Amy knew.

This was  _way_ better than any two-week anniversary.

* * *

Molly Ashcroft has no idea how to handle this.

To be honest, she hasn't had any idea how to handle much of anything since Karma came out - again - as straight.

Which really shouldn't be surprising. How many parents would know what to do? There's no guidebook, no rules, no directions for what you do when your daughter fakes being a lesbian, breaks her best friend's heart, and then starts dating a boy you're pretty sure has the values of an alley cat.

But that -  _all_  of that - is nothing, is easy, is an absolute cake walk compared to this.

"Hi," says the beautiful girl with the partially purple hair standing on Molly's front step. "Is Karma here?"

Molly doesn't need tea leaves to know how this is going to go.

After all, she's known Karma her whole life. Tea leaves or not, Molly can see this train wreck coming a mile away.

"Oh," she says, mostly because she doesn't know what else to say and the sight of this girl - this girl she found out existed all of fifteen minutes ago - has her somewhat dumbstruck. "I mean, yes, please come in. You must be Ripley. Karma said you were coming."

"It's Reagan, actually," the young girl says as she steps through the door.

"Of course," Molly says. "I'm so sorry. I'm horrible with names. That's why we named Karma and Zen, Karma and Zen. So much easier to remember."

Molly finally finds her bearings again and settles into hostess mode, something she knows how to do, something that won't require her to think. She guides Reagan to the kitchen table.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asks, shuffling nervously between the table and the refrigerator. She needs something to do, something normal.

Because what's abnormal about welcoming in your daughter's fake ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend?

"How about some water?" she asks. "A smoothie? I think we have a few CherryMerryCherry ones left…?"

"Water will be fine, thank you," Reagan says. She takes a quick glance around the kitchen, mentally cataloging the few warnings Amy gave her.

Don't drink the smoothies.

Don't mind the smell. It's probably just the brownies.

Don't, under  _any_  circumstances, eat the brownies.

Molly hands Reagan a bottle of water and sits down at the table with her. "So," she says, smiling broadly - maybe a little  _too_ broadly - as the young girl takes a sip. "You're a lesbian?"

Reagan has to bring a hand to her mouth to avoid spit-taking all over Karma's mother.

"Um…" she says, swallowing down the water. "Yes," she says, though even to her it comes out sounding almost like a question.

"Oh, don't worry," Molly says. "No judgments here. This is a safe place." She pats Reagan's hand on the table. "After Karma and Amy came out, I joined PFLAG. I'm totally supportive," she says.

"Well… that's… great," Reagan says. And where the  _fuck_  is Karma, she wonders. "I wish all parents could be as supportive as you."

Molly smiles, pleased that an  _actual_  lesbian - and God, how weird is it that she has to make that distinction? - appreciates her efforts.

"Were your parents not OK with your sexuality?"

Molly is much like her daughter. No concept of boundaries.

Reagan smiles, weakly, glancing around quickly, praying for Karma, which only makes this even more surreal than it already was. "My dad was," she says. "My mom and I don't really… talk… much. But that was the way it was before I came out so…"

Molly nods, understandingly. "Mothers and daughters can have tricky relationships," she says. "I remember when Amy and Karma came out, Farrah didn't handle it so well."

Reagan nods. She remembers Amy telling her about homecoming. "I'm sure that was just the shock," she says. "Farrah's much better now."

She's not sure why she feels the need to defend Farrah. Or why she feels slightly put out at the way Molly subtly rolls her eyes when Reagan does.

"Actually," Reagan says. "Farrah's been the closest thing I've had to a mom in a long time." She's never said that out loud, not even to Amy. "I didn't really know how much I missed that until I had it again."

Molly's eyes soften. She's known Farrah a long time, and while she's never doubted how much the other woman loves Amy, she might have let Farrah's aversion to Karma cloud her judgment.

"I was surprised when Karma said Amy had a girlfriend," Molly says. "I didn't know…" She pauses, not sure how to phrase what she's trying to say. "I knew Karma had faked it, and I knew she said Amy wasn't, but…"

"But you thought maybe Amy was only a lesbian for Karma?"

Molly blushed a little. "It had crossed my mind," she said. "But I mean, obviously, since you two are…"

"Yeah," Reagan said. "I guess I'm the official proof," she smiled at Molly. "Trust me," she says. "Amy is 100% gay, which is great for me, right?"

Oh for fuck's sake, she thinks. 100% gay? Really?

"And you love her," Molly says softly. "I can see it."

Reagan remembers some of the stories Amy's told her about the Ashcrofts. "Is it in my aura?" she asks.

Molly shakes her head. "No," she says. "Your  _eyes_. They light up every time you say her name." Molly smiles at the younger girl and fidgets with her hands on the table, the same gesture Karma made earlier. "I'm glad Amy's found someone. I know she took… things… hard."

_You mean your daughter ripping her heart out_ floats through Reagan's mind before she can stop it. "I'm sure it wasn't easy on Karma either," she says. "Amy's told me a lot about her and I know she would never hurt Amy intentionally."

Molly nods. "No," she says. "But you can't always help who you love," she says. "Or who you don't."

"You ready?" Karma asks as she walks into the kitchen. She doesn't look at Reagan or her mother, instead she leans against the fridge with her hands stuffed in her pockets and her eyes focused on some point far out the kitchen window.

"Yeah," says Reagan. "Thank you for the hospitality, Mrs. Ashcroft," she says. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other around." She stands up and waits for Karma to lead her out the door.

Molly stays sitting at the table. She's got no idea how to handle this, but she knows it isn't going to go well. She may have been surprised by Karma coming out as a lesbian and totally gobsmacked by her coming back out as straight, but she knows her daughter.

And she knows that when it comes to Amy, Karma doesn't play nicely with others.

Molly just hopes that, for once, the daughter she knows and loves - the one that would do anything to make Amy happy - shows up.

"Good luck, Reagan," Molly says under her breath.

You're going to need it.

* * *

They're halfway to where ever the hell they're going (and since Amy has no idea where that is, she can't really be sure it's halfway) when there's a lull in the conversation. And silence plus Amy plus a new situation?

That can't equal anything good.

She lasts all of a minute, maybe two, before she starts desperately searching for some way to break the silence. Something to talk about. Anything.

The weather? They live in Texas. It's dry and hot.

Movies? She and Reagan had gone back and forth about movies for two or three night's worth of texts. Reagan didn't understand Amy's love for documentaries or how she had never seen  _The Princess Bride_.

Karma?

Let's be real here.

Amy feels her mouth opening and closing, but hears nothing, so she  _knows_  she isn't talking, which is worse, really, because sitting there flapping your jaw like some big mouth bass has got to rank oh, so high on the 'this girl is a psycho' scale.

And then, without warning, Reagan reaches a hand over, rests it on Amy's thigh, and gives a gentle squeeze.

"It's OK, Shrimps," she says, and Amy immediately likes this shorter version of her nickname (and that has  _nothing_  to do with the feel of Reagan's hand on her thigh or the momentary short circuiting of her brain that feeling causes). "Just because we don't talk for a minute doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to get bored with you and shove you out of the truck,"

Amy laughs, her entire body relaxing - except for that thigh, where Reagan's hand still sits - and she shakes her head. "Am I that obvious?"

"Well," Reagan says. "It was either that or you were chewing the world's biggest piece of gum." She gives Amy another soft squeeze then returns her hand to the wheel.

And Amy does her best to not miss the contact.

Though, if she's honest, her best isn't near good enough.

"Sorry," she says. "I guess I'm a little out of practice with this whole dating thing."

Reagan steers the car around a corner and Amy realizes they're in a part of town she's never seen. "When  _was_  your last date?" Reagan asks.

"Ummm… never?" Amy is glad the sun is setting, casting pinks and oranges through the windshield, so maybe her blush won't be quite so visible.

"No shit?" Reagan asks, and Amy is genuinely thrilled - and slightly surprised - at the lack of judgment in her tone. The fact that Reagan is older and, Amy assumes, more experienced has been one of the most nerve-wracking parts of this whole experience.

"So,  _no_  dates, at all?" Reagan continues. She slows at a crosswalk, waving a young woman and her daughter across. "Not even a night out with a boy, him trying desperately to get in your pants, you trying desperately to feel  _something_ , just so you could be 'normal'?" She pulls her hands from the wheel to mimic the air-quotes around 'normal'.

"I did  _kiss_  a boy once," Amy confesses, meaning Oliver because she's so not thinking - or counting - either ill-fated encounter with Liam. "He was sweet and made these cute little paper cranes."

Reagan laughs, and though Amy's heard it before, both the first night at the rave and a few times over the phone, she still marvels at the way the older girl's laugh sounds so… alive. Like it come rolling up through her body, from her toes, building a head of steam until it comes barreling out.

"So, paper cranes but no sparks?"

Amy shakes her head. "I  _wanted_ sparks," she says honestly. "It would have made… a lot of things much easier." She wonders, for just a moment, how much simpler everything would have been if she could have just fallen for Oliver. "But it was all just wet lips and too much teeth and the poor boy, he was more nervous than I was. He was shaking so bad, it felt like kissing an earthquake."

Reagan slows to a stop at a red light and tosses a quick glance in Amy's direction. "I bet lots of people feel like the world's shaking when they kiss you."

And Amy's sure  _this_ blush can be seen even in the dusky light. Probably from outer fucking space.

Reagan turns away, looking at the light. "Sorry," she mumbles. "It's been a while since I've been on a first date," she admits. "I'm a little out of practice, so that was probably a bit too forward." She fidgets in her seat and sighs, clearly uncomfortable.

And that  _shouldn't_ make Amy happy. But it does. Just a little.

It reminds her that she's not alone.

And in a moment, one of several she will never forget from this night, Amy finds her voice.

"Maybe I like forward," she says.

Reagan's head snaps around, one perfect eyebrow arched practically off her head. " _Really_?" she asks, the challenge and intrigue rippling through her husky voice.

Amy shrugs, aiming for nonchalant but landing somewhere closer to 'yeah, I'm gonna keep  _trying_  to be smooth'. "Maybe," she says. And then, as Reagan takes her foot off the brake and steers the car through the green light, Amy finishes the thought.

"Or maybe I just like  _you_."

* * *

The first thing Karma notices as she climbs inside of Reagan's truck is that it smells vaguely like Amy. That, she figures, is probably because Amy spends so much time in it

Or, maybe, Reagan's one of those crazy chicks from the documentaries Amy always wanted to watch. Maybe she's some kind of obsessive nut job who buys all the perfumes and lotions her girlfriend uses and spreads them all around.

_It puts the lotion on its skin_  runs through her mind and Karma, briefly, considers the possibility that Reagan's just luring Amy in and eventually she's going to cut her up and harvest her organs.

Stranger things have happened, she thinks.

Like Amy being a lesbian.

As Reagan backs out of the Ashcroft driveway - without even looking, Karma notes, the girl's a fucking  _menace_  - the redhead takes a quick survey of her surroundings.

And she realizes that she and Reagan may,  _technically_ , be alone.

But it's like Amy's right there with them.

There's an empty Starbucks cup in the cup holder. 'Hot Chocolate' noted on the side, right above the name 'Amy'.

There's a hairbrush with few blonde strands on it and a copy of  _Old Man and the Sea_ , the novel they're reading in English class on the seat.

Two ticket stubs from a recent showing of  _The Hunger Games_  sequel are tucked into the passenger side sun visor.

Karma remembers Amy mentioning she'd already seen it. Karma thought she'd said she went with Shane.

There's a small picture taped to the dashboard, right above the - seriously? - tape deck.

Amy and Reagan, on the swing in Shane's backyard.

_It's official. She 'asked'. I said yes._

_Reamy is a thing_.

Why, Karma wonders, didn't she suggest they walk?

Karma tries, so very hard, to find something in the car that doesn't stand up and scream 'Amy Raudenfeld' at the top of its lungs. She settles on a little figure, like one of those hula dancers that shake their hips as the car drives, attached to the dash.

This one's a little dark-haired girl with headphones - a DJ, Karma figures - and its head bobbles in time as the truck bumps down the road.

"Cute," Karma says, tapping the little DJ on the head.

Not that she's fantasizing about doing that to  _anyone_  else. Not. At. All.

"Farrah got that for me," Reagan says. "She found it at some weird store in Houston when she was there at a conference for the TV station. She said it reminded her of me."

Karma wonders, for just a moment, what might remind Farrah of  _her._

She decides, quite quickly, that she's better off not knowing.

"So," Karma says, since apparently the conversational seal has been broken. "I heard you and my mom talking." She watches as the little DJ's head nods and nods and nods. "Amy told you about…  _us_?"

Karma  _doesn't_  wonder, not even for just a moment, about why she doesn't say something else. Why she didn't say 'Amy told you we faked it' or 'Amy told you about our little lesbian adventure' or, pretty much anything other than ' _us_ '.

Reagan nods and, if she's bothered by Karma's word choice, she doesn't show it. "She told me you two faked being a couple to become popular," she says. "She realized she really is gay, was in love with you, you rejected her, you ended up with Liam, and you and Amy ended up just friends."

It's odd, Karma thinks, having something - the biggest  _fucking something_  - ever in your life boiled down to the blurb on the back of a DVD case.

"Yeah," she says. "That would about cover it. I'm just… surprised she told you. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd advertize to a potential girlfriend. Hey, look at me, I was a fake lesbian! But I'm for real now, I swear!"

Reagan glances at her for a moment, and Karma's pretty sure she struck a nerve.

Either that or Reagan glares at everyone like they just shot her dog.

"I guess it's a good thing we were already together when she told me," Reagan says. "Not that it mattered. We've all got some crazy shit in our pasts, right?" She turns the truck down a side street towards the small coffee shop just at the outskirts of Karma's neighborhood.

"Besides," Reagan continues. "All that faking it stuff didn't really matter . There was only one thing I needed to know."

Karma takes the bait. "And that was?"

"If Amy was still in love with you," Reagan says. She pauses the truck at a stop sign and turns to look Karma in the eyes. "And, for the record?"

Karma stares right back. As if she's going to blink, like that would ever happen.

"She's not," Reagan says, a slight smirk crossing her lips, a definite fire raging behind her eyes.

Karma blinks.

* * *

Amy's not entirely sure when it hits her, but when it does, she can't believe that it took her so long to notice.

Being with Reagan is just about the polar opposite of being with Karma.

And, much to Amy's surprise, she's already thinking of that as a good thing. A  _very_  good thing.

Sure, she's basing this on all of half an hour and a few phone calls, but the differences are so stark, so stunningly clear, that Amy is quite sure it wouldn't be any more obvious a day or a week or a month from now.

Some of it, she knows, is the lack of familiarity. With Karma, Amy could predict every moment, every word, every action and reaction. That was how she  _knew_  -no matter what Shane said and no matter how much her lovestruck heart tried to convince her differently - that Karma never felt anything for her beyond friendship.

And, as comforting as that familiarity was, Amy's quickly discovering that the spontaneity and newness of everything with Reagan might not be so comfortable, but it's a lot more…  _alive._

She's not sure there will ever come a moment when something about Reagan or something she does or even just the way the older girl looks at her won't surprise her.

Moments like right now.

They're just making idle conversation and Amy can't remember the last time she laughed so much. She's tried and tried to get Reagan to tell her where they're going, but the sexy DJ just shakes her head and smiles.

"Trust me," she says. And, for some reason, Amy  _does_.

"So," Amy says, still not entirely comfortable with the conversational lulls (that's the  _one_  plus she can think of for the familiarity of Karma), "tape deck?" she asks, pointing at the slot in the dash where Reagan's stereo should sit. "I figured super cool DJ girl would have some fancy high-end six disc changer or something."

Reagan laughs again and Amy tries to ignore the way that sound keeps making an ever increasing warmth rush through her body. "Well," she says, "when super cool DJ girl gets a super cool job that pays a little more super cool money than cater-waitering, maybe she will." She rolls her eyes, as if to say that's not happening anytime soon. "In the meantime, the tape deck will just have to do."

Amy runs a finger across the front of the deck, carefully, as if she's afraid it might break. "I didn't even know they still  _made_  tape decks," she says. She presses the eject button and pluck the small white cassette free, glancing at the name in the haze of the street lights. "Billy Joel?"

Reagan nods, a small smile on her face. "Billy's the man," she says. "My parents used to play his music in the car whenever we went anywhere. I knew all the words to  _Piano Man_  by the time I was five." She gazes at the tape in Amy's hand for a moment before returning her eyes to the road. "You  _have_  heard of Billy, right?"

Amy nods. "I think so," she says. "I think my mom listens to him. Or did, when she was young and her taste hadn't drifted to shit that could pass for elevator music." She flips the tape around in her hand. "Didn't he do that song from  _Lion King_?  _Circle of Life?"_

Reagan groans. "Oh, God. That was Elton John." She shakes her head. "I'm on a date with a heathen."

Amy feigns indignation, but the smile on her face betrays her. "Heathen? Moi?"

"Yes," Reagan says, " _you_." She points at Amy for emphasis. "You haven't heard of Billy, you apparently only know Elton from a  _Disney_  movie…" And the shudder that flows through her at the mention of Disney is about the cutest damn thing Amy's ever seen. "You've never even seen the  _Princess Bride_."

"I know," Amy says, nodding. "It's inconceivable."

"Damn right it…" Reagan trails off, then shoots a quick glance at Amy, who tries (and fails) to imitate the older girl's eyebrow game. "Wait…" she says. "Inconceivable… you keep on using that word…"

"I do not think it means what you think it means," Amy finishes the sentence, grinning like a fool.

_This_ , she thinks, is what it must feel like to actually surprise someone.

"You saw  _Princess Bride_?" Reagan asks. Amy nods. "When?"

"Last night," Amy says "Turns out Lauren owned the collector's edition DVD - go figure  _that_  - and when she heard me telling you I hadn't seen it, she practically hog tied to me to the couch."

"And?" Reagan waves a hand at her, motioning for her to keep going.

"And…" Amy frowns. "And you were right." She tries to ignore the smirk crossing Reagan's face. "It was awesome. "

"And…?"

"Fine," Amy sighs. "Robin Wright was a… how did you put it?"

"A total smoke show," Reagan laughs.

"Yeah," Amy says. " _That_." It's her turn to laugh. "God,  _I'm_ on a date with a fifteen year old boy."

Reagan pulls one hand off the wheel and presses it to her chest. "Moi?"

"Yes,  _you_ ," Amy replies. "Ogling actresses in movie, listening to oldies rock and roll. You've probably even named your truck." When Reagan doesn't reply and, in fact, turns and glances out her window, Amy knows she's hit a nerve. "Oh. My. God. You named your truck! You did."

Reagan stares straight ahead. "All the best cars have names," she says.

"Let me guess," Amy says, turning in her seat to face Reagan. "Butch? Louise? Francesca?"

Reagan does her best to bite back a giggle. "Francesca?"

"I don't know," Amy says. "I've never had a car, so what the hell do I know about car names?" She reaches over and puts a hand on Reagan's arm. "Tell me? Please?"

Reagan would, if she could. But  _something_  just forced all the air out of her lungs and the blood from her brain and, oh fuck, if just the touch of her  _hand_  can do this… "It's…. um…"

"Um?" Amy asks. "You named your car 'um'?"

Reagan manages to shake her head and takes a deep breath. Shit, she thinks, I'm in  _trouble_.

"Lightning," she finally gasps out. "Her name is Lightning."

Amy sits back, taking her hand with her and Reagan immediately wishes she hadn't. "Lightning," she says. "Lightning." She nods as she says it, as if it agrees with her.

Which is good Because right about now, Reagan would probably agree to Butch or Louise or even Francesca if Amy asked.

"So, is that Lightning as in  _Greased Lightning_?"

"Oh, God no," Reagan says, forcing herself to calm the  _fuck_  down. "Not all gays like the musicals, Shrimps. And I, for one,  _hate_  that fucking movie." She pauses for a moment, "But… Olivia Newton John in those leather pants…"

Amy laughs and it hits Reagan right then just how much she'd like to hear that sound more often.

"So it's just Lighting?" Amy asks. Reagan shrugs, which even Amy recognizes as code for 'no, but I'm not telling you', and she is  _so_  not going to let this go. "Oh, come on," she says. "You've already told me part of it. You can't leave me hanging here."

Reagan shakes her head. "Nope," she says. "Not gonna happen."

"Fine, don't tell me," Amy says. She turns back in her seat, crosses her arms and stares straight ahead. "And in case you can't see it," she says. "I'm totally pouting right now."

Reagan smirks at how quickly she's regained control.

Which, she knows, is utter bullshit. Because if Amy keeps pouting…

"Pouting," Reagan says "doesn't work on me."

And when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Amy turn to her again, with the most incredibly evil (and so fucking sexy) grin on her face, Reagan immediately thinks pouting might be better.

"So, no pouting," Amy says. "So, what  _does_  work? How about this?" She fixes Reagan with her best come hither stare, which mostly means she looks slightly constipated. "How about this?" Amy attempts to shake her chest like the girls in the music videos.

Reagan laughs so hard she nearly crosses into oncoming traffic.

Amy sits back for a moment, studying the older girl. And then, in a flash of inspiration, she unbuckles her belt, leans over, placing her hand back on Reagan's arm, resting her chin on Reagan's shoulder, her lips just inches from Reagan's ear.

"How," she whispers "about this?" Her breath is warm on Reagan's ear, her fingers ghosting small circles on the skin of the older girl's arm.

Reagan cracks like a cheap walnut.

"McQueen," she says. "OK? Lightning  _McQueen_. Now just go back over there," she says, waving one hand in the general direction of Amy's seat. "Before you know, we get in an accident or something."

Amy doesn't move for a long - so  _very fucking long_  to Reagan - moment. She's not trying to torture Reagan, really she isn't. But it's suddenly hit her, what she's doing. And if Reagan was surprised by it?

Amy's fucking stunned.

She - finally - leans back in her seat, slipping the belt back around herself. "Sorry," she says.

"Sorry?" Reagan asks, only slightly mortified by the way her voice cracks slightly. "What are you sorry for?"

"For…  _that_ ," Amy says quietly. "I don't know what came over me. I was just teasing you and we were laughing and having fun and…" She sighs. "And then there was the touching and the whispering and the being all breathy and shit..."

Reagan steers the car into a small parking lot, taking a spot near the back. "Shrimps?" Amy sits silently, staring straight ahead. "Amy, look at me."

Amy turns to her, and Reagan can see it all over her face. She's scared and confused and for all the confidence she showed a minute ago, Amy clearly has no idea what the hell she's doing.

It's so fucking adorable, Reagan could cry.

"Do I look like I'm complaining about the touching and the whispering and the…"

"Being all breathy," Amy adds.

"Right," Reagan says. She slides out from under the seat belt and leans over, laying one hand on top of Amy's. "I'm going to be blunt here, Shrimps. I'm attracted to you. Like  _way_  more than I should be."

Amy frowns and Reagan realizes her mistake.

"It's not that I shouldn't be attracted to you," she says. "But we've actually hung out together for about an hour now. And usually it takes me a little longer than that to get to… this point."

"What point?" Amy asks as she turns her hand over beneath Reagan's. tentatively sliding her fingers between the older girl's.

Reagan bites down on her bottom lip at the contact. "The point where scrapping our date and taking you back to my place sounds so very appealing." And even in the low lights of the parking lot, she can see Amy blush, but she can also see her smile. "I'm guessing you don't hear that sort of thing very often?"

Amy shakes her head. And her breath hitches as Reagan laces their fingers together.

"Then everyone you hang out with is either dumb, blind, or a gay guy," Reagan says, marvelling to herself at how well their hands fit together. "Trust me, Shrimps, if you ever let out whatever part of you just dropped all that sexy on me, you'll be beating the dudes  _and_  the lesbians off with a stick."

Amy looks down at their hands in her lap. And suddenly the idea of going back to Reagan's apartment sounds pretty good to her too.

"We don't  _have_  to stay here," she says, and even though she hears the words and knows that's her voice saying them, she's still surprised.

She's more surprised that she thinks she means it.

Reagan gives her hand a gentle squeeze. "Believe me, Shrimps, I am sorely tempted."

"But?" Amy asks.

"But," Reagan says. "I spent ten minutes in your driveway tonight freaking out. I was terrified - for various reasons we're not going to talk about on a first date - but I finally got out of the car. Not because I was attracted to you or wanted to take you home. But because I really want… this..."

Reagan trails off. It had been a while, sure, but even she knows this isn't the sort of thing you were supposed to say on a first date.

"I want it, too," Amy says. Reagan's eyes shoot up to meet hers. "I want to go on our date. I want to talk to you and get to know you, and I  _really_  want to know why you named your truck after a cartoon race car." She smiles and so does Reagan. "So, how about we save the deep stuff for later and just have some fun for now? Deal?"

Reagan brings their entwined hands to her lips and ghosts one soft kiss across Amy's knuckles. "Deal." she says. "But I'm so not telling you about the truck."

Amy pops open her door, stepping out into the parking lot. She pulls Reagan out, never once dropping her hand. "Oh, you'll tell me," she says. "I have my ways."

And Reagan knows she's right. But she doesn't mind a bit.

* * *

_She's not._

_She's. Not._

Well. OK. That's good. Glad we're getting past that.

Keep telling yourself that Karma. And let me know when you believe it.

Reagan pulls into the coffee shop parking lot, and takes a spot by the door. She cuts the engine and leans back in her seat.

"I'm sorry," she says, so softly that Karma almost doesn't hear her.

"What?" Karma shakes herself back into the here and now. "Did you just say you were sorry?"

Reagan nods. "That was a bitch move," she says. "Telling you Amy doesn't love you like that." The older girl shakes her head. "Here I am worrying about you getting territorial and I come out with  _that_? I may as well have just peed on Amy."

"Or given her a hickey," Karma says, reminding them both of the series of bites that were clearly visible on Amy that morning.

"Yeah," Reagan says. "That too." She shifts in her seat so she can look at Karma. "Look, maybe we should just start over, you know? I mean, I know this isn't totally fair. Amy's told me  _all_  about you, and I've been kept a bit of a secret."

Karma snorts. "A  _bit_?" Talk about your under-fucking-statement. "I didn't even know you existed until yesterday. And now you're sleeping in my friend's bed, giving her hickeys, getting her videotaped, you're friends with the wicked step-sister - who's  _threatening_  me by the way - and you're buttering up my mom like it's me you want to sleep with."

Reagan arches an eyebrow. "Tell me how you  _really_ feel, Karma."

"I feel shut the fuck out, that's how I feel." Karma's voice dropped. Yesterday, when Amy had told her about Reagan, she'd been too shocked and too angry to really feel it.

But now it was hitting her. Over and over and fucking over again.

Karma stared at the little DJ, with its head still bobbling along, not a care in the world. "My best friend, my  _soulmate_  shut me out of this huge part of her life for two fucking months. And if Shane doesn't open his mouth, I don't know if I'd even know about you now."

"Shane?" Reagan's confused. How does Shane factor into all this?

And now it's Karma's turn to smirk. "Amy didn't tell you?" She laughs, but it's a hard and painful sounding thing. "Shane screwed up. He mentioned you in front of me at lunch. After that, Amy couldn't lie anymore."

"Oh," Reagan says. And, to be honest, she doesn't really know what else to say.

"Welcome to my world." Karma says. She reaches out and presses a hand to the little DJ's head, stilling it. "How's it feel? How's it feel being the one lied to?"

"She didn't lie to me." Reagan says, hoping she sounds like she means it more than she feels like she does. "She told me you found out. The how doesn't really matter."

"Of course not," Karma says. "Because she  _told_  you. She told you about me. She told you about faking it for fuck's sake."

Reagan thinks, for just a moment, about telling Karma that it was  _Lauren_  that told her about faking it, or at least got the ball rolling.

But then she thinks better of it.

"Do you know what she told  _me?_ ," Karma asks. And now that anger from the day before is rushing back, overriding everything else. "She told me to grow the fuck up. She told me that she needed something just for her. Something  _I_ couldn't fuck up."

Shit. Shit, shit,  _shit_.

Reagan makes a mental note to remind Amy to tell her things she  _might_  need to know.

"When," Karma says, and this time it's her turn to stare into Reagan's eyes. "When did I become the person Amy  _can't_  tell things to? When did I become the fuck up?" There's tears in her eyes but a bitter anger in her voice. "When the hell did my  _best friend_  decide I wasn't worth trusting with her heart?"

And the words leave Reagan's mouth before she can stop them.

"Probably right around the time you broke it."

* * *

Amy stares up at the big bright yellow neon sign and knot of fear ties itself off in her stomach.

" _Planter's_?" she asks. "Like the peanuts?"

Reagan bumps the blonde's shoulder with her own. "Relax, Shrimps. I haven't forgotten your allergy." Amy smiles weakly, not quite convinced.

"Planter," Reagan says, "was the name of the first owner and when his daughter was born, they found out she had a peanut allergy. So, he changed the whole menu over, all the way down to how they make the food."

She raises their joined hands and points to a sign on the door - a peanut with a giant red 'X' through it.

"When the owner retired, his daughter took over and she kept it all the same," Reagan says. "This is, without a doubt, the safest place for you to eat in all of Austin."

Amy smiles, for real, touched by how thoughtful Reagan is. "You know, under that super cool DJ girl exterior, you're nothing but a big old softy, aren't you?"

Reagan shrugs. Only for you, she thinks, but says nothing, instead just tugging Amy though the front door of the diner by their still linked hands.

It's the smell that hits Amy first. And between the feel of Reagan's hand in hers and that  _wonderful_  smell, the blonde is pretty sure she's just found heaven.

"Oh my God," she says. "What is  _that_?" She takes in a deep breath. This, she imagines, is what a kitchen should smell like, instead of the rank smell of days old take out (a Farrah speciality) or some unholy mixture of veggies and herbs and, possibly, illegal drugs (the Ashcroft house in a nutshell, no pun intended).

"That," Reagan says, "would be  _those_." She drops Amy's hand to point at a glass case by the front counter. And Amy, despite instantaneously missing the contact, is too transfixed by what's behind the glass to think about it.

"No. Fucking. Way." She rushes the case like a kid on Christmas morning, crouching down in front of it, barely even noticing when her breath fogs the glass. "Are those?"

"Yup," Reagan says, coming up behind her. "Twenty different kinds of homemade, fresh baked, totally peanut free doughnuts." She can't help but laugh at the way Amy's staring at the baked goods. "They actually have forty different kinds, but they rotate them in and out."

Amy presses her fingers against the glass. "So, we were planning to order one of each and just stay here the rest of the night?"

Reagan kneels beside her, putting one hand on Amy's knee. "Not exactly," she says. "But I did get you a treat." She stands back up, offering Amy a hand, which the blonde takes, but not before shooting one last wistful glance at the case.

Reagan leads her to a small table in the corner. "Your table, milady." She pulls out the chair for Amy, the one in front of a large box.

A large, yummy smelling box.

"If that's what I think it is," Amy says, as she sits down. "I may just have to marry you."

Reagan leans over and opens the box, allowing Amy to feast her eyes on two  _dozen_  beautiful doughnuts. "Just for you," Reagan says. But when Amy reaches for one, Reagan smacks her hand and closes the box. "For you to  _take home_ ," she says. "For here, we're actually going to have a meal."

Amy pouts. Doughnuts are a meal.

Reagan sits down across from her, then waves back at someone behind the counter. A moment later a middle-aged waitress appears next to their table.

"Rea, it's so nice to see you. It's been too long."

Reagan stands and hugs the woman and Amy feels a slight pang of jealousy.

Not for the hug. But because Reagan knows the  _doughnut woman_.

"Jana, this is Amy, my date for the evening," Reagan says. "Amy, this is Jana Planter, owner and proprietor of your new favorite place on Earth."

"You own the place?" Amy asks. "Are you hiring? I'd make a great taste-tester. You wouldn't even have to pay me."

Jana laughs and smiles and Amy immediately likes the woman even more.

"Rea said you had a thing for the baked goods," Jana says. "She also might have mentioned that you liked bacon?"

Amy's eyes grow impossibly wide. "Do you have a bacon flavored donut?"

Jana nods and points at the box on the table. "Fourth row, third from the top," she says. Amy reaches for the box and Reagan smacks her hand,  _again_. "But, we also have something else you might like." She disappears behind the counter again and reappears with two plates, which she slides down in front of the girls.

Reagan and Jana both grin as Amy takes in the sight on her plate. "Is that? No. I mean, I've heard of them, but…" She looks up at the waitress and then over at Reagan. "Is it?"

Reagan nods. "Deep fried doughnut bacon cheeseburger," she says. "Best in the state. Guaranteed to raise your cholesterol fifty points just from looking at it."

Amy picks up the burger. "It's so beautiful," she says. "I almost can't bring myself to take a bite."

And then she takes the biggest bite Reagan's ever seen anyone take of anything, ever.

"What?" Amy says over a mouthful of deep fried deliciousness. "I said  _almost_."

Exactly eighteen and a half minutes later…

"That," Amy says, "was so good, I think it got me pregnant. Which is fine, because if I was ever going to have babies, I would totally want them to be deep fried bacon burger babies."

Reagan stares from across the table, her face a mixture of admiration, fear, and - she'll admit it - arousal. "It was like watching one of those shows on the Nature Channel," she says. "The ones where they show the lion devouring its prey."

"I wasn't that bad," Amy says.

"I offered you the other half of mine," Reagan says, "and I thought you were going to eat my hand with it."

Amy smirks at her. "Lesson number one about me, DJ - never come between me and bacon. Or a doughnut." She thinks about it for a minute. "Or shrimp."

Reagan's phone vibrates its way across the table and she snatches it up. "Shit," she says. "It's work. I have to take this. Be right back?"

Amy nods as the older girl stands and strolls to the other side of the near empty diner to take her call. Jana appears to take their plates. "Thank you, Jana," Amy says. "That was  _so_  good."

"Reagan thought you'd like it," the older woman says as she collects Amy's plate. She's not even sure she'll have to run it through the dishwasher, its been licked so clean.

"Have you known her long?" Amy asks.

Jana nods. "Since she was little. Her whole family used to come in once a week." Jana's smile grows a little sad. "Even after the divorce and the move, Reagan stills comes in a couple times a month."

Amy knows she shouldn't ask her next question, but she can't help it. "So you must have met a lot of the girls she's dated?"

Jana smirks knowingly at Amy. "Trying to get a little inside info?"

Amy blushes. "No, it's just… this is my first date," she says, chalking her sudden forthcoming nature up to  _how can you not trust the Doughnut Woman_? "And I guess I'm worried I won't measure up."

Jana glances over, sees Reagan still in the corner talking animatedly into her cell. "Well," she says. "I wouldn't really know. You're the first girl she's ever brought here."

The nice doughnut lady sees the surprise on Amy's face.

"Reagan doesn't date a lot, that I know of, "Jana says." she's always been more of a commitment girl. She was with Shelby for… a year, I think… and I never even met her. Heard  _all_  about her. But never met her."

She smiles at Amy again and clears the table, leaving the blonde to her thoughts. Reagan smiles at her from across the room and Amy smiles back, but those words keep running through her mind.

_You're the first girl she's ever brought here._

It might not mean as much as Amy thinks it does. It might not mean anything.

But Amy thinks it does. She thinks it means a lot.

And she just hopes it means as much to Reagan as it does to her.

* * *

If looks really could kill, Reagan's pretty sure the glare Karma's burning into her right now would have killed her, cremated her, and spread her ashes to the wind.

And, as much as she hates to admit it, she might deserve it.

_Right around the time you broke it_

Could she have gone for any more of a cheap shot? Sure, it's the  _truth_ , and yeah, sometimes the truth hurts.

But still…

So much for two mature women having coffee and getting to know each other.

So much for a lot of things.

Karma finally breaks the silence and, since it's not by lunging across the cab of the truck to strangle her, Reagan's eager to listen.

"You don't know  _shit_  about that."

"Amy told me - "

Karma shakes her head. "I don't care what she told you. I don't give one single solitary  _fuck_  what she told you." She's fisting her seatbelt in her hand and Reagan wonders, briefly, if the redhead could get the belt all the way across the cab and around her throat.

"Look, Karma -"

"No." Karma hasn't stopped glaring, Reagan's not even sure she's blinked. "I will  _not_  look. I will not listen. I will not sit here and let you…"

"Let me what?" Reagan asks, her aggravation getting the better of her,  _again_. "What is it I'm doing, Karma?"

"You're talking about things that are none of your fucking business,"

Reagan feels bad for what she said. Really. She didn't ask Karma for coffee so she could hurt her. That wasn't the plan.

But she's also starting to wonder if maybe a lot of this could have been avoided if  _someone_  had called Karma out on some shit a long while ago.

"Amy," Reagan says," _is_  my business. I'm her girlfriend, in case you forgot."

Karma smirks, and Reagan immediately misses the glare. "Yeah, you're her girlfriend. But do you really think that's going to last?" Karma, apparently, has decided not to pull punches either. "I mean come on, Reagan. You're hot and all. But your temporary. Do you really think 'Reamy' is endgame here?"

"And you think you're going to be the one to decide that, Karma?" Reagan hates the viciously territorial lesbian stereotype.

But that doesn't mean she won't live up to it.

Karma smiles at her and there's something so spiteful about it that Reagan can't help wondering what this girl would do if she ever found out about Amy and Liam.

"You think I  _can't_?" Karma asks. "You think you're so far into Amy's life that I can't get you out, just. like. that?"

Reagan knows this isn't going to end well. Hell, it didn't  _start_ well. But now… now she appreciates just how far off the rails this has gone. And she's the older one. The supposed adult. She should stop it.

She  _should_.

"Not her life," Reagan says. "Her  _heart_."

Karma just laughs. Not a chuckle or a snort but a full on throw her head back and let it rip laugh. "Her heart? Babe, the only thing you're  _in_  is her bed. And trust me, I know how easy it is to get caught up in all that. How easily finally getting a little can blind you. It was like that with me and Liam in the beginning."

Reagan resists the urge to visibly recoil at the mention of the douche. "Amy and I are nothing like you and Liam," she snaps. "You wanted him because he was popular. He just wanted to fuck a lesbian."

Karma doesn't miss a beat. "And that makes him different from you, how?"

"I don't want to fuck  _a_ lesbian, Karma." Reagan leans forward, making sure the younger girl can hear every word. "I want to fuck  _Amy_. And last time I checked? That was one thing you sure as hell couldn't give her."

"And that's  _all_  you can give her," Karma spits back. "You can't give her history. You can't give her ten years. You can't give her a connection. Not like ours."

Reagan undoes her belt. She's had about enough. "I wouldn't want to," she says. "You act like you have this sacred, unbreakable bond."

"We do."

"Yeah?" Reagan knows this is it.

This is the one she can't take back.

"So tell me Karma," she says. "When your best friend, your  _soulmate_  was at her most vulnerable, when she had just revealed to you her biggest, deepest, most frightening secret, when she had  _come out_  to you, what did you do?"

It's the one thing, the one mistake in ten years that Karma truly fears they'll never be able to get past.

And Reagan knows it.

"I broke her heart," Karma says. And the glare is gone. The fire and venom has fallen from her voice. And Reagan almost feels sorry for her.

Almost.

"You still don't get it," Reagan says. "It wasn't the rejection. It wasn't that you didn't love her like that."

Karma's lost, Reagan can see it in her eyes.

"You told her it was no big deal," Reagan says. She can still remember the night Amy finally told her everything about the wedding. How she could still recite Karma's words  _exactly_. "You told her she was confused."

Karma's breaking right in front of her, but Reagan can't stop.

She's sinking in quicksand.

"You told her you slept with Liam."

Karma's eyes squeeze shut and that only serves to flush the tears down her cheek.

"Amy opened her heart to you, Karma," Reagan says. "She counted on that bond. Maybe not to make you love her like that, but to at least make you be the friend you always claim to be."

Karma shakes in her seat, shuddering sobs rumbling through her.

"You want to know why Amy might keep something from you?" Reagan swings her door open and hops from the truck. "After that night, if  _I_ was Amy, I doubt I'd tell you anything ever again."

Reagan slams the door shut and walks into the shop, leaving Karma sobbing behind her.

She hates that she said it. She hates that she did it.

But somebody had to. Somebody had to have Amy's back.

That used to be Karma's job.

Not anymore.

* * *

Amy follows Reagan across the street, over a trail through a small patch of woods, and then down a small hill.

_Over the river and through the woods…_

"Is this the part where you kill me and bury my recently fattened up body somewhere in the woods?"

"If I was going to kill you, Shrimps, I'd have just slipped some peanuts into your burger," Reagan says. "OK, we're here."

Here looks suspiciously like an old abandoned lot with a rickety swing set sitting right in the middle of the light from one street lamp.

"And here is?"

"An old abandoned lot with a rickety swing set," Reagan says, waving her arms to encompass all of it. "And also, my favorite place on Earth."

Reagan takes her Amy by the hand and guides her to the swing set, settling her on one, before she sits down on the other.

She points off into the distance, toward a small cluster of houses. "That's where I grew up, at least at first," she says. "We lived in that development. Me, my mom, my dad, and Glenn. He and I found this place one day, after we'd all had breakfast at Planter's."

Reagan swings gently and Amy waits. She knows this means something to Reagan and she'll let her tell it at her own pace.

"Glenn and I used to come here all the time," Reagan says. "Whenever our parents were fighting, which was basically  _all the time_." Reagan stares off at the houses in the distance, watches as lights blink out one by one. "It just sort of became our place. I don't think I ever saw another kid here."

_You're the first girl she's ever brought here_.

Amy closes her eyes. She  _has_ to. If she looks at Reagan for one more minute…

"There used to be a movie theater up the hill, behind those houses," Reaga says. "When I was 11, my mother took me to see  _Cars_ there one Sunday."

Amy pushes herself gently on the swing, moving back and forth, just listening.

"A week later, she and my dad sat me and Glenn down and told us they were getting a divorce." Reagan hops off her own swing, moving behind Amy, giving her gentle pushes.

Using the motion to hide the tears.

"That movie was the last day my mom and I ever spent together, just the two of us."

And suddenly, 'McQueen' makes so much sense it makes Amy's heart hurt,

"I still come here," Reagan says. "When I need to be alone, when I need to think, when I need to let myself stop hating my mother and just miss her."

Amy stops swinging, spinning herself around, letting the chains get tangled up. She reaches out and pulls Reagan to her, slipping her arms around the older girl's waist.

"I don't know…" Reagan starts but then stops. "I've never brought anyone else here," she says. "And honestly, I wasn't even planning to tonight. I was just going to take you to Planter's and then maybe we'd go for a walk or stargaze from the back of Lightning… but then…"

"But then, what?" Amy asks, afraid she's done something without knowing.

"Then I saw you," Reagan says, smiling even though there are still tears in her eyes

"Saw me?" Amy asks.

Reagan nods as she brings one hand to Amy's cheek, her heart shuddering when Amy leans into the contact.

"When you came down the stairs in your house," she says. "When you climbed in my truck. When you saw the doughnuts, when you took that first bite of burger and dripped ketchup down your chin, when you - "

And her words are cut off by Amy's lips pressing against hers and, for just a second, Reagan forgets to breathe.

But then she feels Amy's tongue poking against her lips and she opens up and Amy's breathing for the both of them.

Reagan brings both hands up to cup Amy's cheeks and she feels Amy's hands as they clutch at the back of her shirt. And Amy tastes like doughnut and burger and ketchup and so many other things that Reagan thinks - no, she's  _sure_  - she'll never get tired of.

And for a very long while, even after that first kiss - and a second and a third and a few more - are done, they stay there, wrapped up in each other, listening to the sounds of the night and swaying beneath the light of that one street lamp.


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: I didn't plan for this to be a Karma-centric chapter, but it is.  She got her butt kicked a  bit in the last one, and this one's not much better.  Although, there is some Liam bashing so...** _

 

Karma shouldn't be alone.

More to the point, she shouldn't be alone in Reagan's truck, staring at that fucking picture on the dash.

_She asked. I said 'yes'._

_Reamy's a thing_.

A thing. That's fucking accurate, Karma thinks. A thing. A blob. Frankenstein's monster made of soulmates and dorky hot lesbians.

A fucking  _thing._

Yeah, she should definitely  _not_ be alone. But who was she going to call?

Amy?

Yeah, that would go well. Hey, Aimes? Yeah, so I just basically threatened to end your relationship and your girlfriend essentially called me a selfish bitch.

Karma does pull out her phone -  _not_  to call Amy, but because she has a sudden and immediate need to see something, something she's had tucked away in her pictures for months. She searches through the gallery, not noticing -  _acknowledging_  - that there's three times as many pictures of her and Amy as there are of her and Liam.

There's three times as many pictures of  _just_  Amy as there are with Liam. Even if you count the ones where he's in the background or part of a group shot or the semi-pornographic ones he's taken to sending her lately that she has hidden in a separate folder.

But Karma's not thinking of that right now, because right now, she's found what she was looking for.

The picture from the quad. The one she took when she kissed Amy and then posted it on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and - possibly - her old MySpace account.

She was excited. Shit happens.

She zooms the pic in, making sure to get their faces front and center. And then she's holding it next to that little picture on Reagan's dash.

And motherfucker, how did she not see it before?

How did no one see it?

It's plain as day now, so obvious that Karma can only assume it was a mass delusion or a cult-like need for, as Shane always called it, lesbian energy that kept everyone else blind.

It had to be something like that, she thinks. Because anyone with eyes and even half a functional brain can see it. It's right there in the picture, in all its pixelated glory.

Nothing.

She looks again. Maybe she was too quick. Maybe she rushed to judgment.

Nope. Nothing.

The picture of Amy and Reagan, who aren't even kissing - because, come on, a peck on the forehead does not a  _kiss_  make - is still dripping in chemistry. It's like the two of them can't be in the same place at the same time without sparks flying around.

Someday, Karma thinks, someone will write a lesbian romance novel - she assumes there are such things - and use Amy and Reagan as cover models. It'll be a bestseller.

And even beyond the sparks, beyond the collective hotness, all you have to do is look at Amy's face.

Peaceful. Content. Right where she belongs.

And then there's the picture of her and Karma.

Karma has to stifle a bitter, of the irony of it all laugh. Because for someone who was supposedly in love with her - in love with the person actually  _kissing_  her - Amy looks anything but peaceful. Anything but content.

She looks, Karma thinks, like she'd rather be anywhere else.

She looks like she'd rather be  _anyone_  else.

Karma could chalk it up to Amy knowing, in that moment, how she really felt. And sure, kissing someone you really  _want_  to kiss, but knowing they don't feel the same?

Yeah, that could suck.

So, Karma could cut Amy some slack. But then there's Karma herself. And holy fucking shit, could she look any  _more_  uncomfortable. Sure, she's trying to line up a photo op at the same time she's trying to frame the perfect sweet Karmy kiss, but damn.

She's supposed to be kissing her  _girlfriend_. The  _love of her life._

And, Karma has to admit, she looks more like she's kissing her sister.

No. Even sisters have hotter kisses than that.

She looks like she's kissing that annoying aunt, the one who'll never settle for just a kiss on the cheek and you try so hard to let  _just_  the tip of your lips make contact because, let's face it, you don't know where Aunt Crazy has been.

Karma's tempted, for just a second, to scroll through and find a picture of her kissing Liam, so she can make sure it isn't just  _her_. So she can make sure she has chemistry with someone.

But this day has already sucked enough. She's not taking any more chances.

Her phone goes off in her hand and she drops it. Snatching it up off the floor of Reagan's truck, she answers without looking, hoping - for some ridiculous reason - that it's Amy calling to make sure she and Reagan haven't killed each other.

It's not.

It's Liam.

Shit.

Karma leans back in the seat, which seems to do nothing but force a rush of Amy's scent out of the fabric and Karma feels like she's choking.

Liam wants to know where she is. He's been calling since last night. He texted her like a hundred times. He even went by her house first thing this morning, but her mom told him that Karma was already out and she didn't know where.

Yeah. Right.

Because Molly wouldn't know that if Karma wasn't with Liam, there was only one other place she'd be on a Saturday morning.

An obvious fact that was, apparently,  _too_  obvious for Liam.

Karma fills in the blanks for him and says she went to Amy's and  _now_  Liam has a clue, because he immediately puts two and two together and figures Karma saw the video.

Well, duh. Is there someone who  _hasn't_ seen the video?

Karma shrugs, forgetting that he isn't actually there - and ignoring what that  _should_  tell her about how distinctive his presence really is in her life - and then says that yes, she saw it.

No, it didn't bother her. Why would it?

Because, Liam points out, it was Amy. Amy kissing someone. Someone who wasn't  _her_.

Liam doesn't actually say the last part, but Karma knows he's thinking it.

At first, his barely repressed jealousy over Amy was cute. Now it just reeks of insecurity and desperation.

Karma would know.

It's no big deal, she tells him. Amy's kissed people before. Amy's kissed  _her_  before.

Hell, Amy's kissed  _Liam_  before. Karma knows. She was there.

And yeah, she's not thinking about that right now, either.

But really, Liam's thinking Karma might be bothered because she didn't know Amy had a girlfriend. And Liam knows Karma didn't know because, all evidence to the contrary, Liam's not a complete idiot.

If Karma had known, she'd have mentioned it. Repeatedly. Ad nauseum.

_All the fucking time_.

No, Karma says. She's not bothered. It's good that Amy has someone. It's good that she's moving on. All Karma wants is for Amy to be happy.

Liam thinks that's great. He's happy that she's happy.

And maybe he  _is_ a complete idiot.

But, Karma thinks, he's a complete idiot with a car. And a set of perfectly pillow like lips. And a hard-on - figuratively and literally - for her.

Idiot? Maybe. Perfect distraction to make her stop thinking about Amy and Reagan?

Definitely.

"I'm at the coffee shop at the corner of West and Clarence," she says. "Be here in ten minutes and I'll make it worth your while."

He's there in seven.

And as Karma rides away, she spots Reagan walking out of the coffee shop. And, she figures, by the time the older girl notices that picture's not taped to the dash anymore, Karma and Liam will be long gone.

 

* * *

 

Most girls who have the privilege of hooking up with Liam Booker would be entirely happy with him on top of them, pressing them against one of the cold metal tables in the art room, with their jeans bunched around their knees and their panties halfway there.

Most girls would probably make some comment about not minding the cold. And follow that up by reminding Liam that could warm them up.

Unless he said it before them. Which, Karma knows, would likely not be the only thing he would do first.

That would be most girls. But Karma's not most girls, though you'd be hard pressed to tell that by the way Liam's working his moves on her. The way he's nuzzling at her neck, and making her wonder how lips that look so pillow soft can feel so much like sandpaper.

On any other day, the fact that her top is still on - and not even  _wrinkled_  - but Liam's belt is off and his jeans are sliding toward the floor would piss Karma off.

But today is not any other day.

Today, given everything, Karma is doing her best to be 'most girls'. She's doing her level best to not care about how cheap and tawdry this is. She's doing everything she can to not think about what it means that Liam still hasn't introduced her to his family. Or that he's gotten better at using the g-word - he's made it all way way to calling her his 'girl' - but only in private.

She's trying so hard not to think about how many of those 'most girls' were pinned down on this same table.

But the trouble is, Karma's not really good at  _not_  thinking about too many things. And the limited 'not gonna deal with it' space in her mind is already full:

_inlovewith_ _**DJReagan** _ **.** _#bestthingtoeverhappentome_

_I won't apologize for loving her. Not now. Not ever._

_Right about the time you broke it._

_If I were Amy… I'd never tell you anything again._

So, Karma's already working hard to not think about a lot. So, trying not to think about Liam and his sad sack attempts at foreplay - for 'most girls', just saying 'I'm Liam Booker' probably did the trick - or the way he sounds like an asthmatic poodle when he starts to get  _really_ excited?

Yeah, that's not happening.

Karma shoves him off and slides down from the metal table, pulling her jeans back up from around her knees while steadfastly ignoring the 'what the fuck' look on his face.

But, when he  _says_  it. it's a little harder to ignore.

Karma pauses for a minute. She's trying to remind herself that she's not mad at  _him_. He's not the cause for this  _and_  she did, basically, tell him she was going to fuck him.

But then, for the briefest of seconds, it crosses her mind.

He'd probably fuck Reagan. Not that she would let him - most  _real_  lesbians aren't all that interested in fulfilling the fantasy of the local straight douche.

But he would want to . He'd be willing.

_Shit._ He'd probably fuck  _Amy_. Oh, he said he wouldn't after the threesome. He said he only wanted her there because he was a good guy and he didn't want to break up Hester's cutest couple.

But Amy's a lesbian. Apparently.

And, besides 'most girls', that's apparently Liam's type.

So, when he asks Karma again - though, to his credit, he asks her if she's OK and not 'what the fuck' because, it seems, she's just been staring at him for life five minutes - she glares at him. And gives him the most honest answer she can.

"Do I  _fucking_ look like I'm OK?" And, as she stalks out of the art room (as much as one  _can_ stalk with one's underwear not fully back in place), she turns back. "And  _this_ ," she says, waving her hand between them. " _This_  isn't happening again until you introduce your  _girlfriend_  to your family."

Karma's tired of secrets. She's even more tired of being one.

 

* * *

 

She's halfway to Amy's house before she thinks better of it.

She's three-quarters of the way there before she thinks better of it enough to turn around.

Karma's often oblivious and, for all her dossiers and planning, she often leaps without looking. But even she is smart enough to know that showing up at Amy's house right now won't make anything better.

Amy might not even be back from shopping with Lauren yet.

Reagan might be there.

_Lauren_  might be there. And even with the evil blonde's intersex secret in her back pocket, Karma's still a little -  _just_  a little - afraid of what Satan's ninja might do.

And it's that thought - not the fear, but the thought of using Lauren's secret against her - taht makes Karma stop in the middle of the street.

When, she wonders, did she become a person who would consider outing someone. When did that become acceptable to her?

Probably, she figures, right around the same time faking being a lesbian, lying to a boy to make him fall for her, using her best friend, ignoring the clear and obvious signs that she was hurting that best friend, and threatening that best friend's new girlfriend all became acceptable.

Well. Shit.

And Karma has to race off the street to the nearest set of bushes, where she promptly throws up the very little that was in her stomach. And, as she wipes her mouth with a tissue from her pocket, she's insanely glad she didn't actually get any coffee.

That shit burns coming back up.

She takes a few steps and she sits down on the grass and puts her head in her hands. She wants to cry, to scream. She wants…

She doesn't know. For the first time in her life, Karma has absolutely no fucking idea what she wants. That one thing that was always crystal clear in her mind, is now clouded over and hidden behind a bunch of rocks.

And she's just too tired to lift them.

And while Karma may not know what she  _does_  want, she knows it isn't this. She doesn't want to be lost and confused and sitting on the grass, less than five feet from her own puke.

Alone.

She's alone.

And  _that's_ what finally brings the tears.

 

* * *

 

 

Karma's very grateful for her mother. Because Molly knows her well enough that when she sees the look on Karma's face as she comes through the door?

Molly knows what to do.

She leads Karma to the kitchen table, settles her in a chair, and sets to making her daughter a cup of tea.

It's essentially the opposite of her conversation with Liam. There's no questions, no pressure. Molly doesn't say a word, doesn't even bat an eye as Karma drops the picture of Amy and Reagan on the table. She doesn't ask how the coffee date went or why Karma walked home.

Molly just takes care of her little girl.

And when her mother slides the cup of tea onto the table in front of her, Karma reaches out and clasps a hand around Molly's arm, tugging on it gently. And Molly kneels, immediately wrapping her daughter in her arms as Karma lets loose with ugly, heaving sobs, burying her face in her mother's neck.

And, for just a moment, Karma doesn't feel so alone.

And that just makes the tears worse.

 

* * *

 

 

Once the sobs have stopped and the tea has been finished, Molly sits next to Karma at the table and takes her hand.

She still doesn't say anything, it's just to let her daughter know she's there. Molly will wait for her, Karma knows that. She'll wait until Karma's ready.

Ready?

Karma's not sure she'll ever be ready and that's really the whole fucking problem isn't it?

She'll never be ready to cut Liam loose, even as every day with him makes her realize what a colossal mistake being with him is.

She'll never be ready to face the shittiest parts of herself, the parts that would willingly hurt someone. The parts that would keep her oblivious to someone else's pain as long as she was happy.

She'll  _never_  be ready to see Amy and Reagan together. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in this life.

Maybe not even in the next.

She'll never be ready for Amy. Whatever the  _hell_  that means.

Karma tugs her phone out of her pocket and opens the picture of her and Amy. She sets it on the table, where Molly can see.

"I screwed up," Karma says softly. "I screwed it all up and I don't have the first clue how to fix it."

She runs a finger across the screen and it feels right to her. Detached. Shielded. Cut off.

"How did I not see it?" she asks. "How did I not see what I was doing to her? To us?"

Molly squeezes Karma's hand in her own. It kills her to see her only daughter like this.

But then again, Molly didn't need those tea leaves to see this day coming.

Karma picks up the picture of Reagan and Amy and puts it down on top of her phone. "I did  _this_ ," she says. "The two of them… it's because of me. If I don't talk Amy into faking it, if I wasn't so oblivious… if I hadn't  _let_  myself be so oblivious… " She taps the picture with her finger. " _This_  wouldn't be."

None of this would be.

And the one thing that  _would_  be - her and Amy - is the one thing she really needs. But right now, it's the one thing that  _isn't._

And Karma's not sure it ever will be again.

 

* * *

 

 

She's perfect for Amy, Karma told Molly. She's funny. She's beautiful. She's a total dork, in all the best ways. And she loves Amy, anyone who's with them for five seconds can see it.

Reagan's perfect.

And God, does Karma hate her.

She can do everything for Amy that I do, Karma said to her mother. And the one thing I  _can't_.

And then she'd excused herself. Said she was going to rest for a while.

Big party tonight.

And, as she sits on the edge of her bed, staring at that picture, Karma wonders why would Amy settle for something as one-sided as their relationship has become? Why would she do that when she could have something so much more real?

Amy wouldn't. Amy  _shouldn't._

And Karma shouldn't  _want_  her to.

She  _shouldn't._

"If I was a better friend," Karma says, "If was the  _best_  friend I always claim to be, I'd be happy for her."

She clutches the picture of Amy and Reagan between two fingers.

"I would be happy for Amy and wish her well, and try to bond with Reagan," she says. "After all, we've got at least one thing in common."

Karma stares at the picture. "If I was a better friend, I wouldn't be so insecure. I wouldn't worry that someday Amy will find someone she loves as much as she loves me," she says. "I would know that even if she does - even if she  _has_  - she's still my Amy. She'll always be mine."

She looks at the picture one last time. The she slowly tears it, splitting Reagan and Amy apart.

So simple. So easy.

It  _so_  won't go that way. Not for real.

"I'm  _not_ a better friend," she says, holding a piece of the picture in each hand and wishing, truly, that she was.

Karma really shouldn't be alone.

But she has a feeling she's going to end up that way.


	15. Chapter 15

**_A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and kudos. I didn't like the last chapter and I don't honestly know how I feel about this one either. This is all Reamy, present and past, with a little Lauren and Theo tossed in._ **

The words keep ringing in her ears, no matter how hard she tries not to hear them.

_Do you really think that's going to last?_

_You're temporary_

_You think I can't get you out? Just. Like. That?_

Her phone buzzes in her pocket - for like the tenth time in the last three minutes - but Reagan ignores it. She knows it's Amy and as much as she wants to talk to her, she can't. Not yet.

Not until she doesn't hear those words anymore.

She knows Karma was going for the kill. She was pissed. She was hurt. And it's not like Reagan was totally innocent. She took her own fair share of shots.

But Reagan knows every one of her words was true.

She just wishes she knew Karma's  _weren't_.

Her phone buzzes again and she fishes it out of her pocket. It's a text, from Lauren.

_Lolo: How bad was it?_

Reagan ghosts her thumb across the keypad, not sure if she should answer and not sure  _what_  to say even if she does. She finally settles on something approaching honesty.

_Reagan: About what you'd expect._

She knows with Lauren she could throw Karma under the bus. Throw her under, run her over, back up, do it again.

But Reagan won't do it. She won't win like that.

And she really has to stop thinking of it as winning. Amy's not a prize. She's not some stupid stuffed bear in a crane machine.

She has to stop thinking of it as winning.

Especially when what she's really worried about is losing.

_Lolo: Karma called Amy. Said they needed to talk. She left her five voicemails and every one got a little worse._

There's a pause and then another buzz.

_Lolo: What did say to her? She called you vicious and territorial._

Reagan can't say she's surprised. She knows enough about Karma to know that for all her planning and scheming, she's impulsive when she's hurt.

_If I was Amy, I'd never tell you anything again._

Yeah, that one might have stung.

_Lolo: Amy wants to know where you are. She says you're not answering her texts or calls._

Reagan leans back into the swing and drags her feet across the ground. She looks down the hill and she can almost make out the house she grew up in.

Her mom still lives down there. Two streets over from their old place. A nice split-level she shares with her new husband and Reagan's two step-siblings she's never met.

You can't choose your family.

She glances down at the phone.

Or, she thinks, maybe you  _can_.

_Reagan: Tell her she knows where I am._

The response comes in less than ten seconds.

_Lolo: She says we'll be there in twenty. And to get her a bacon and a jelly and WTF does that mean?_

Reagan smiles as she hops off the swing and starts the walk up to Planter's.

****

* * *

 

 

It was their third date. That was when it became real for Reagan.

Their  _second_  date had been all Amy. During one of their marathon phone calls - which seemingly had become even longer after date number one - Reagan had mentioned that her father used to take her to the zoo twice a month. But, since she'd moved out, they just hadn't been able to make it.

Two days later, Amy surprised her with a pair of day passes and tickets to the almost always sold-out butterfly garden tour.

On their way out of the zoo, as Amy gushed about the pair of butterflies that had landed on her shoulders, Reagan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. She pulled the younger girl to her, dropping a gentle kiss on her cheek before rubbing their noses together.

"Best. Date. Ever." she whispered into Amy's lips as she gave her a quick peck.

Both girls had a feeling that description might be getting used a lot.

But it was their third date - or  _after_ the date, if you were going to be technical - that Reagan remembered.

"There's this all ages club right on the outskirts of Austin," Reagan explained to Amy over the phone. "And they want me to DJ there a couple times next month. And I know I should take any job that comes along, but…I'm picky." She paused, wishing Amy could see the smirk on her face. "Well,I'm picky at least when it comes to work. Dates… eh… not so much."

A quick 'bite me' and five minutes later - which Reagan had come to realize was about the length of time Amy would always  _pretend_  to put up a fight - Amy caved in and agreed to go with her.

"It'll be fun," Reagan said. "Just remember to dress for a night out on the town, Shrimps."

Amy called Shane for fashion advice. He took her shopping, helped her find the perfect outfit, assuring her that it wasn't possible for her jeans to be  _too tight_  or her top to be  _too low_.

As Amy walked out of the house, Reagan could tell she was a little nervous about her new look - a pair of 'oh my God, how did you get into those' skinny jeans and a top so low cut Reagan could… well… she  _couldn't_ really do much.

Not with the staring. And the staring.

And did she mention the staring?

And the only thing going through Reagan's mind as she pinned Amy against Lightning and kissed her until they were both breathless?

She'd have to send Shane a thank you note.

Unlike Amy's outfit, the club sucked. It was dirty, and not in the good 'oh look, there's people getting a little extra freaky on the dancefloor' way. The bartenders were clueless, which was a considerable problem in an all ages club where their main job was to squirt watered down Coke into little plastic cups. And the DJ - someone Reagan didn't recognize - didn't seem to know or care about keeping people moving. The music was awful, the atmosphere worse.

And then there were the boys.

It didn't take long, maybe five minutes, before Amy and Reagan started drawing some stares. Holding hands, dancing together, the occasional quick kiss - it was all catnip for little pervs, like leaving a fresh baked doughnut right outside Amy's bedroom door.

Reagan wasn't surprised. She'd been stared at plenty with Shelby and even a little bit with Anna. But Amy was hotter than either of them and in  _that_  outfit?

Who  _wouldn't_ stare?

Once it was clear that the two of them were on a date - with  _each other_  - the pervs and jackoffs came out of the woodwork.

Over the half hour they were in the club, Reagan guessed at least a half dozen little pimply-faced wannabes hit on each of them. A few more didn't bother with hitting on them.

They just asked if they could watch.

After Reagan had to physically restrain Amy from punching one of the pre-pubescent Liam Bookers-in-training, both girls decided a retreat to Planter's was in order. A doughnut - or two for Amy - a milkshake, and some stargazing sounded about right.

Of course, stopping by their park - and Reagan had already taken to calling it that in her mind - and making out in the moonlight didn't sound too bad either.

* * *

Reagan's leaning against Lightning with a cup of coffee in her hand and a bag of doughnuts on the hood when Amy, Lauren, and Theo pull up.

Lauren is out of the car first, which doesn't surprise Reagan. She's never seen the little blonde exit a vehicle at anything less than MACH 2. She storms across the parking lot, slamming Reagan into a hug and nearly spilling the older girl's coffee.

"Hello to you too, Lolo," Reagan says, switching the coffee to her other hand so she can wrap an arm around the tiny blonde. She nods at Theo over the top of Lauren's head, but consciously avoids looking at Amy. "I take it you and tall, dark, and charming over there had a good talk?"

Lauren leans back and nods. "He was surprisingly OK with it," she says quietly. "Though I did catch him Squirkling 'intersex' on his phone afterward."

Reagan smiles and squeezes Lauren tightly. "Hey Theo," she says. "Glad to hear you're not a dick. Good job." She stutters slightly as Lauren slugs her in the arm. "But just so you know… if you hurt her, I'm going to have to kill you."

"Hey!" says Amy. "I'm the actual sister here. I'm the one who should be threatening him."

Reagan nods but still doesn't look at her. She  _can't_. Not with Karma's threats still running through her brain. "You probably are, Shrimps. But let's face it… the only things scared of you are doughnuts, bacon, and Liam."

Lauren snorts into Reagan's shoulder. "Speaking of Liam," she says, stepping back out of the older girl's arms.

"Do we  _have_  to?" Amy asks.

Lauren turns and glares at Amy. "Are you going to tell her or am I?"

Reagan takes a sip of her coffee and drums her fingers on the side of the cup. "Tell me what?"

Amy takes one tentative step toward Reagan and then just… hovers there… like she's not sure if she's allowed to come any closer. "Apparently Karma showed Liam a picture of you," she says. "And he recognized you from… the party."

"Oh," Reagan says. And she really doesn't know what else to say.

She doesn't know what else to think. Or to do. She doesn't know much of anything at this point.

The bubble's officially burst.

"He's been texting Amy every five minutes ever since," Lauren says. "Shit like 'what were you thinking' and 'do you want her to find out' and 'why didn't you warn me'."

Reagan nods, mostly for lack of anything else to do, and then inclines her head towards Theo and arches one eyebrow, hoping either Lauren or Amy will pick up on her super-secret code.

"He knows everything," Lauren says and shoots Theo a  _very_ loaded look. "Including where his loyalties lie."

"I won't say a word," Theo says, as he gives Reagan what she assumes is meant to be a sympathetic look. "Liam's a dick anyway. How big a douche do you have to be to go after someone you think is in a relationship?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Reagan can see Amy smile. "I know there was a reason I liked you," the blonde says to Theo. "Lauren, you should keep this one around."

"I'll consider it," Lauren says. "But back to Liam…"

"Fuck him," Reagan says.

"Amy already did," Theo chimes in. "That's the problem."

All three girls turn on him at once.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "I was trying to lighten the mood?"

It's Amy who lets him off the hook. "It's OK," she says. "Believe me, whenever I think of sex with Booker, I laugh, so…" She glances back at Reagan and does a little hop back and forth in place. "But I'm with Rea. Let Liam get pissy and whine about how much of a mess this makes  _his_  life. That's what he does best anyway."

"OK," Lauren shrugs, but Reagan can tell she doesn't like it. Lauren doesn't like anything that puts things off, that kicks the can down the road.

Because somehow? The can always ends up right back on your doorstep.

Lauren glances between Amy and Reagan, sensing the tension.

It's hard to miss. It's like there's a wall, thirty some odd feet of brick and cement, between them.

"So," she says, "this is the legendary Planter's?"

"Yup," Reagan says. "Home to the best doughnuts in all of Austin."

"And the best burger ever," Amy adds. "It's better than sex," she says. "At least… you know… sex with Booker."

Lauren rolls her eyes. "You are such a dork," she says, "and if you keep talking about…  _that_ … I'm going to lose my appetite." She grabs Theo's hand and drags him toward the door. "Come on 'mood lightener', I feel like some unnecessary carbs and grease, And you're buying."

She rests one hand on Reagan's arm as she passes, squeezes it lightly.

It will all be OK, her eyes say.

The fuck it will.

But, Reagan thinks, it's the thought that counts.

Amy watches as they disappear into Planter's. She shuffles back and forth in her spot, scuffing a sneaker against the dirt.

Reagan leans against Lightning and nods to the bag on the hood. "I got you doughnuts,' she says. "One bacon, one jelly, as requested."

Amy nods. "Thanks," she says, but she doesn't move.

Reagan shakes her head. She wanted to keep some kind of distance. She wanted to pull back a little.

She didn't want Karma's words singing in her head every time she looked Amy.

She didn't want to hold her, kiss her,  _love_ her. And hear Karma… or Shelby…. the whole time.

But just having Amy there, just a few feet away, and not being able to look at her or touch her or just  _be_  with her…

Reagan wonders how she thought, even for a minute, that she could handle that.

"Well," she says, breaking the thirty seconds or so of silence, and finally looking at Amy. Iif you want them, you better come kiss me or I'm just going to have to-"

Her words are cut off by Amy's lips crashing onto hers and this time she  _does_  drop the coffee, but that just frees up her hands to cup Amy's cheeks as the blonde deepens the kiss.

Amy presses forward, pinning Reagan against the hood, and she lets her hands slide up under the sides of Reagan's shirt because all she wants in that moment is contact. She needs to feel Reagan and for Reagan to feel her.

It's an odd, desperate kind of idea. Like she hopes the touch of their skin will soothe the wounds, will ease the pain.

It's an odd, desperate kind of idea.

But it  _works_.

Reagan breaks the kiss, resting her forehead against Amy's. "Hey, Shrimps."

Amy's grip on Reagan's sides tightens, as if she's worried her girlfriend might run off. "I'm sorry," she says.

Reagan tips her head back so she can see Amy's face. "Sorry? For what? Making me spill my coffee? Come on, Shrimps. You know Jana can make a mean doughnut, but that coffee's like sludge."

"Not the coffee," Amy says. "Karma. I'm sorry for Karma."

Reagan lets her hands trail down Amy's body, finally linking them together behind the younger girl's back. "Lolo said she left you some messages. Did she tell you what we talked about?"

Amy shakes her head. "Just that she and I should talk." Her eyes drop and she's looking down at the ground, at Lightning's tires, at anything and everything that isn't Reagan.

"Amy?" Reagan brings one hand back around, slowly lifting Amy's chin so that they're staring into each other's eyes. "You're a lousy liar, Shrimps. And I know she said I was mean, but if there's something else…"

Amy frowns. "You'll get mad," she says.

"Is that a problem for you?" Reagan asks. "If I get mad at Karma?"

Amy is shaking her head before Reagan even finishes the question. "No," she says. "I don't care if you're mad at her." She frowns again. " _I'm_ mad at her."

"What did she say?"

"She said she wasn't going to let you hurt me," Amy says, quietly. "She said you were mean and vicious to her. And if that's the kind of person you really are…"

"Then I'll hurt you in the end," Reagan finishes. "She blamed me for you shutting her out, didn't she?"

Amy nods. "'I'm so sorry, Rea.  _This_  is why I didn't tell her. Because  _this_  is what comes from doing that. All this drama and shit and you're older and you don't need this crap and -"

And this time it's Amy who's cut off by a kiss. It's quicker and more deliberate than the other one, but it accomplishes its goal nonetheless.

"You're right," Reagan says as she pulls back. "I don't need the drama." Amy nods, sadly, but Reagan just pulls her closer. "What I  _do_ need is that little blonde ball of crazy in there, and her giant of a boyfriend, and your crazy but fashion-brilliant GBF. And I  _need_ your mom, though not in the dirty way, and Bruce - even  _more_  not in the dirty way."

Amy smiles and wraps her arms around Reagan's neck. "And?"

"And?" Reagan repeats. "Oh. Yeah. Almost forgot." She pecks Amy's lips and then slips from the blonde's grasp, making a break for their park. "I need Jana too. Definitely need the doughnut lady."

"Reagan…"

She arches an eyebrow and bites her bottom lip - the pair of moves she's come to call 'The Amy' - "If you think I forgot someone, Shrimps," Reagan says as she crosses the lot. "Then you better come remind me."

Reagan squeals as Amy starts running after her, knowing full well she could outrun her.

But she really doesn't want to.

* * *

The night of their first date, Amy was on the swing, but for date number three, Reagan took the spot, cradling Amy from behind, her arms wrapped around the blonde's waist, lips working against the spot right behind Amy's ear, the one that always raises goosebumps on Amy's skin.

Reagan's hands slipped just beneath the hem of Amy's blouse, fingers grazing lightly against the skin of the her stomach. Her nails scratched lightly across Amy's abs, dipping briefly into her navel.

Amy couldn't help but let out a little moan. Everything with Reagan was new and different and God, did it all feel so  _good_.

"Fuck," Amy hissed as Reagan's fingers repeated their travels along the other side.

Reagan paused, stilling her hands against Amy's skin. "Too fast? she whispered. She knew Amy had never gone even this far with a girl and as much as she wanted her, Reagan wasn't going to rush into anything. She didn't want to risk this.

Amy, on the other hand, was apparently not so risk adverse.

"I'll tell you when it's too fast," she said, spinning around and surprising Reagan by capturing the older girl's bottom lip between her own and sucking on it gently. All the while, she was guiding Reagan's hands around to her back and under her shirt.

"Shrimps?" Even Reagan could hear the moan in her voice as Amy let go of her lip and moved to placing a string of kisses along the older girl's jawline.

Amy didn't respond with words. Instead, she reached back and took ahold of one of Reagan's hands, steering it out from under her shirt.

And right onto her ass.

Reagan didn't want to moan again, really she didn't. She felt like one of those horny little boys from the club, but she couldn't help it. She slid her hand into the back pocket of Amy's jeans - and God, were they tight - and found the blonde's lips with her own.

If it was like this when they were still dressed and not even touching any of the  _good_  stuff, Reagan wasn't sure she could handle if they ever went further.

But she definitely wanted to find out.

Amy slid forward, practically climbing into Reagan's lap and she couldn't hold back a moan of her own as Reagan slid her tongue into her mouth.

And all Amy could think was how much she didn't want to stop. How badly she wanted to drag Reagan back to her truck, to bury her face in the older girl's neck while Reagan frantically drove them back to her apartment.

Fuck that. That would take too long. There was grass here. Grass was good.

Amy broke the kiss and leaned her forehead against Reagan's, trying to bring herself back under control.

She'd let her hormones and desires overwhelm her before.

Granted,  _that_ desire was to hurt Karma, but Amy still wasn't going to let it happen again.

Fucking Liam hadn't meant a thing.

This? This meant  _everything_.

Reagan collected herself first. "We OK here, Shrimps?" She started to move her hand from Amy's pocket, but stopped when the blonde grabbed her wrist.

Amy let out a long breath. "This  _has_  to be killing you," she said.

Reagan smirked. "Grabbing your ass?" she asked. "Yup. Definitely killing me. Worst moment of my life, I tell ya."

Amy tipped her head back and glared at her. "That's not what I meant," she said. She pulled Reagan's other hand out from under her shirt and slid it down next to the other one, using her own palm to press Reagan's hand hard against her jeans.

Reagan stifled a moan - mostly - but not quite enough to  _not_ bring a smirk to Amy's face.

"I  _meant_ ," Amy said, "that doing all this, but stopping, has got to be rough." She swiveled her hips just slightly, causing Reagan's hands to shift in a way that made them both breathe a little deeper. "This is all new to me," she said. "And every new thing, I can't imagine anything could be better."

"I  _can_ ," Reagan said. And she could. "And I have been," she said. "Frequently."

"Really?" Amy asked. A blush crept up her cheeks and her stomach did flips.

Reagan nodded. "I spilled a martini on a woman yesterday," she said. "Because I was too busy thinking about this spot," she pressed a quick kiss to the base of Amy's neck.

"Just that one?"

Reagan rested her head on Amy's shoulder. "Shrimps, if I start giving you a guided tour of all your spots that I've been thinking about, we're either never leaving this park or getting arrested for indecent exposure." She could feel Amy chuckle. "And that would totally mess up my plans for date number four."

Amy scooted herself forward - mentally thanking Shane for the 'can't be too tight' jeans and thanking science for the concept of friction - and wrapped her arms around Reagan sliding her hands sliding down the older girl's back. "Date number four? Awfully sure of yourself, aren't you DJ?"

"Yup," said Reagan, as she squeezed with both of her hands at the same time and a guttural moan rolled out of Amy totally out of her control. "And with good reason."

Amy stood suddenly, capturing both of Reagan's hands as they slid away. She tugged the older girl off the swing and over to the grassier area. She laid down, staring up at Reagan.

"Shrimps?"

"Get down here," Amy said, the huskiness of her voice surprising her almost as much as it did Reagan. "Get down here or I'll have to come get you."

Reagan was sorely tempted to see what  _exactly_  that meant, but she resisted and made to lie down next to Amy. The younger girl reached out and gripped both her wrists, shaking her head. "Not  _there_ ," she said, tipping her head at the spot  _next_ to her. " _Here_."

Amy pulled Reagan down on top of her, aligning their bodies together. She slipped one leg between Reagan's and - almost involuntarily - pressed up, against the older girl.

Reagan had to close her eyes and count to ten.

Who was she kidding?

Counting to one hundred wouldn't have helped.

"Looks like  _I've_  got some reason to be cocky too." Amy said with a grin.

"You have  _no idea_ ," Reagan said, keeping her eyes shut. If she looked at Amy right that moment, she was pretty sure what little willpower she had might well die on the spot.

Amy ran her hands down Reagan's back, stopping just above the waistline of her jeans, letting her fingers brush against the small strip of skin peeking out from under Reagan's top.

"Reagan?"

"Yeah, Shrimps?"

Reagan was immeasurably proud of herself for getting that much out.

"You know I've never done… any of this before, right?" Reagan nodded, her hair falling down around her face, ticking Amy's nose. "So, don't laugh when I ask this, OK?"

Reagan planted both hands onto the ground on either side of Amy, pushing herself up so she could see the younger girl's face. "You're doing fine, Amy," she said, knowing exactly what the blonde was going to ask. " _More_  than fine. Trust me."

"I do," Amy said softly, and she surprised herself with how much she meant it. "It's just… I like you. I  _really_  like you."

And those words should really not have turned Reagan on even more.

"You like me, huh?" Reagan lowered herself down onto her elbows. She tried to keep her tone light, tried to make it all into more fun and flirting, but the feel of Amy's thigh pressing between her legs was making her feel anything but light. " _All_  of me? Or are there particular bits you're fond of?"

Amy's hands slid down Reagan's back again, but this time they didn't stop at her waist. "I  _do_ like your ass," Amy said, squeezing gently and smirking at the way Reagan's eyes clouded at the contact. "The night of our first date, I almost couldn't stop staring at it."

"Really?" Reagan squeaked out and Amy wasn't sure if was arousal or a little bit of a blush that was coloring the other girl's cheeks.

"Yeah," she said. "Definitely your ass. And your lips." Amy leaned up and ghosted her lips over Reagan's, lingering just long enough to let her tongue swipe across Reagan's bottom lip.

Reagan's balance faltered slightly as a shudder ran through her. "Amy?"

"Yeah, Rea?"

"You need to stop now."

Amy cocked her head to the side, regarding the older girl with a look of feigned confusion. "But why?"

Reagan dropped to the ground next to Amy, grabbing both her arms in the process, and pulled the younger girl on top of her.

"Because if you don't stop," Reagan said, "I won't be  _able_  to stop." She brought her hand up and cupped Amy's cheek. "And I  _really_  like you too," she said. "And - God, help me - being with you like  _that_  isn't worth risking everything else this could be."

Amy reached up and caught the hand Reagan had pressed against her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into the contact.

If she had known this was what it was like, what it  _could_  be like…

"Shrimps?"

"You know what else I like?" Amy asked, not opening her eyes. "I like how it seems as if your hand was meant to hold mine," she said. "Like they fit perfectly together."

Reagan laced her fingers through Amy's. "They do," she said softly.

Amy continued. "And I like how every time we kiss, I can taste the coffee you've been chugging all day."

Reagan rested her free hand on the blonde's hip, softly squeezing her fingers into Amy's flesh. "Anything else?"

Amy nodded. "The way my heart races when you touch me," she said. "Like when you rest your hand on my thigh when you're driving and I think I might pass out cause the damn thing's pounding so hard in my chest."

Reagan knew the feeling.

"But there's this one thing," Amy said, "this one thing I like more than the others." She opened her eyes and stared down at Reagan. "I like that I can tell you all this," she said. "I can tell you all this and I  _know_  that I'm not alone in it. That even when you go, even when you drop me at home and leave…"

"I'm never far," Reagan said, pressing the joined hands to Amy's chest.

"I know," Amy said. She laid down on Reagan, resting her head on the older girl's chest. And she could hear Reagan's heart beating sounding so much like the drumming of her pulse within her own ears.

"I know."

* * *

Amy catches her at the swings.

Reagan's already taken up her usual spot on one of them and Amy sits on the other, holding out a hand, which Reagan takes.

"Amy…"

The blonde shakes her head. "I don't want to know," she says. "I know you're not going to tell me what Karma said to you, because you… just  _wouldn't_. But I don't want to know what you said either."

Reagan stares straight ahead, her eyes drifting down the hill over and over again.

"But I said - "

Amy cuts her off. "It doesn't matter," she says. "Because I know whatever you said was probably true. And even if it wasn't…"

Amy slips off the swing and steps away. She's not sure exactly how to say it and she wants to make it right.

"Even if it wasn't," she says. "It doesn't matter. Partly because you were fighting. For  _me_." Amy looks at the ground. "And no one has ever done that before."

Reagan can't help but wonder how anyone could  _not_  love this girl. How could anyone have ever made her feel like she wasn't the  _only_  choice?

How anyone could have ever made Amy feel like there even was a choice when it came to loving her is totally beyond Reagan.

"But it's not just that," Amy says. Reagan can tell she's working up to something so she lets her talk at her own pace. "You shouldn't have been there," she says. " _I_ should have. I should be the one dealing with this. I was the one who kept the secret. I was the one who shut her out and I'm not saying I didn't have good reason but it was still  _me,_ and you shouldn't-"

The words all come out in a rush and that rush comes to an abrupt halt as Reagan wraps Amy up in her arms. The younger girl buries her face in the crook of Reagan's neck and silently sobs. Reagan holds her until the tears subside and then she leads her back to the swings, settling Amy on one and kneeling before her.

"You and Karma have to deal with this shit, eventually," Reagan says, holding Amy's hands in her lap. "But you don't have to do it alone, Shrimps." She brings one hand up and tucks a lock of Amy's hair behind her ear. "You never have to do anything alone. You've got your mom. And Lolo. And Shane and, apparently, Theo."

Amy smiles. "He's a good guy," she says. "And he treats her well. He's like her own little cop, always there to 'serve and protect'."

"Lolo should always be protected," Reagan says. "And so should you." She drops to both knees, taking Amy into her arms. "And that's  _my_ job, now. And if that means taking some of Karma's crap… so be it."

She kisses Amy, a kiss without any other intent, just for them.

And in the silence, Reagan notices, she doesn't hear Karma's words anymore.

And that's the only thought she spares Karma. Just that one.

Karma will be there. Lauren and Theo and Shane and Liam and all that shit will be there. And she and Amy will deal with it.

And Reagan knows that Karma has a hold on Amy that may never be broken and she doesn't know if she would even want it to be. She knows Amy is  _hers_  and in ways she will never be Karma's. But Reagan knows that doesn't mean she won't have to share. And she's OK with that, as long as Amy is.

But that's for later. Not now. Right now? This moment?

This, Reagan thinks, is just for them.

_Just for me._


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Karma made Amy cry / Amy and Reagan sitting in Karma's driveway. Better than it sounds. I think.

Amy is nine the first time Karma makes her cry.

It wasn't intentional, Amy knows. Even at nine, she realizes one very important truth about her best friend - Karma never  _means_  to hurt anyone.

Which, of course, doesn't make anything she does hurt any less.

Karma arrives at the Raudenfeld front door, her tiny pink suitcase in tow. She's run away from home which, to anyone who knows Karma - even the nine year old version of her - isn't much of a surprise.

It's more of a surprise that this is the first time she's done it.

The suitcase is crammed full, too full really, with everything Karma thinks she will truly need if she never returns home, which is her plan. Even at nine, Karma  _always_  has a plan, always written out, this time on a tiny sheet of Hello Kitty stationairy her Gam-Gam got her for her eighth birthday.

As Karma schemes go, this one is fairly straight forward.

She'll live with Amy until they graduate high school. There's an empty bedroom across the hall and it's not like anyone will be using that, right?

They'll go to college together - Karma will let Amy choose, unless she picks one of those little tiny schools no one has ever heard of, and and then all bets are off - and after they graduate, they'll move to NYC or Paris, or some other exotic city she hasn't learned about in school yet.

Then they'll settle down, in cute little houses next door to each other. They'll marry brothers - Karma will, of course, take the older, more handsome one - and they'll have exactly five kids between them.

The only unsettled part of the plan? Who will have how many of those kids?

She's leaning towards four for Amy and one for her.

Amy's an only child. Karma has Zen.

And since he's the reason she's currently standing on Amy's front step, Karma thinks maybe one will be enough for her.

So, in the suitcase, she's got everything she can imagine needing. Her clothes - the ones that don't scream 'my parents are new age whackadoos with a juice truck and some oddly smelling brownies' (so, not an extensive wardrobe) - her box of trinkets and play jewlerey from her Gam-Gam, her magazines - fashion, entertainment, and music, naturally - half a dozen CDs, and her journal.

Karma has resigned herself to never seeing the rest of her worldly possessions, such as they are, again.

But, she reasons, that's a small price to pay for being somewhere she will be loved, somewhere she will be wanted, somewhere, she thinks, where she will be appreciated.

Farrah opens the front door and stares down at her.

"Oh, Karma," she says. " _What a surprise."_

At nine, Karma doesn't yet have enough experience with sarcasm - even with Amy as her best friend - to pick up on the eye roll or the tone.

She also doesn't know that Farrah's actually been expecting her for the last twenty minutes, ever since Molly called.

"She left a note," Molly said, sounding far more excited, intrigued - maybe even  _proud?_ \- about her daughter wandering off that Farrah - or most reasonable people - would have expected.

Molly read the note to Farrah in the way some parents might recite their child's report card.

_To whom it may concern,_

(such good manners and proper grammar, Molly points out)

_I have left. Do not try to find me. You will never figure out where I have gone._

(Farrah was glad, at that moment, that eye rolls aren't visible over phone lines)

_I will not stay where I am not wanted._

(Farrah wondered if it was possible for one to roll one's eyes hard enough that they actually get stuck)

_Good-bye,_

_Karma_

_P.S. Please wish Zen a happy birthday for me_

That last line brought Molly to tears. "She's just so thoughtful," Karma's mother said. "Even in her pain, she's always thinking of others."

Years later, after Amy returns home early from a party at Shane's house with a bruised and bloody hand, a seriously pissed off girlfriend, and a sobbing Lauren, Farrah will recall this conversation.

And she'll wonder what how so much can change in just a few years.

Of course, Karma's claims aside, both women  _knew_ where the little girl was going. So, when the knock had finally come, Farrah hadn't been surprised.

Karma draws herself up to her full height, putting on a brave face, refusing to let her best friend's mother see her looking a mess.

"Hello, Mrs. Raudenfeld," the young girls says. Her try at a formal, grown-up tone comes across as more of a slightly stilted bad British accent, but Farrah is used to Karma's affectations, so she just rolls with it.

She nods at the suitcase behind Karma. "Going somewhere, sweetie?"

"Yes," Karma replies immediately and then, suddenly she realizes her plan - as brilliant as it may be - has one potentially fatal flaw.

Farrah.

Nine-year-old Karma may not recognize sarcasm, but she  _does_  know when she's not someone's favorite person.

And she's  _never_  been Farrah's favorite. And even at nine, Karma's pretty sure she never will be.

"I'm going… somewhere," Karma says. She's worried, but not horribly so. Amy will let her stay and Amy will convince Farrah. "I can't tell you where, though," Karma rolls on, whispering conspiratorially. "You might tell Molly and Lucas."

Karma heard a girl in a movie call her parents by their first names. She tried it out for a few weeks, but it didn't stick. Now, she just uses them when she's mad, when her parents have disappointed her.

"Got it," Farrah says, nodding. "Well, I think Amy is up in her room if you wanted to say good-bye before you head off… somewhere."

Karma nods her thanks - always polite, even in her pain - and heads for the stairs, still trying to drag the little pink case behind her.

"You can leave that there, Karma," Farrah says. "I'll keep an eye on it."

"Thank you," Karma says, but the words are already fading as she dashes up the stairs and through her best friend's bedroom door. Amy is sitting on the edge of the bed, just waiting.

"Amy," Karma says, slightly winded from the stairs. "I ran away from home."

Amy regards her for a moment.

In the years to come, Karma will recognize that look. She will - in fact - call it  _The Look._

As in, ' _you're giving me The Look again.'_

Or, ' _Faking blindness is a brilliant plan and stop giving me The Look_.'

Or, eventually, ' _Liam Booker will love me and we will have little Bookers and you'll be Aunt Amy and will you stop giving me The Fucking Look!'_

And, in the years to come, Amy will realize that  _The Look_  is usually followed by a shrug - and sometimes a resigned sigh - both from her. And then some obviously ridiculous scheme that will end with one (usually Amy) or both of them in significant trouble and Karma giving Amy her own version of  _The Look_ :

A sheepish grin. A tilt of the head. A wouldn't-it-have-been-better-to-think-of-this-first apology.

Amy just shrugs.

"My mom said you could stay the night," Amy says. "And she said we could go get ice cream after dinner, but only if you call your parents to tell them you're OK."

Karma glances around behind her, wondering if Farrah has slipped in and she missed it.

"She said that?  _When_?"

"A few minutes ago, Amy says." "Right after your mom called. She found your note." Amy hops off the bed and wraps her best friend in a hug. "What happened?"

Karma frowns. "Zen," she says simply, as if that explains it all. And it sort of does. "He won't let me come to his birthday party. It's  _boys_  only."

Amy stays silent and continues to hug Karma tightly. Mostly because she loves her best friend.

But, also, it conveniently hides rolling eyes.

"And then when I got mad," Karma says, "he started yelling at me. He said I would ruin the party."

Amy still says nothing and now it's because she knows where this is going. The same place it always goes when Karma and Zen fight.

"And then he said that he  _deserved_  a special party because Molly and Lucas  _chose_ him."

Amy can recite it in her head, word for word.

_Of all the babies in all the world, they picked me. Most parents never get to pick the kid they want. But ours did._

_Once._

Amy was only seven when she concluded - and rightly so - that Zen was a massive dick.

"I'm sorry, Karma," she says. "But it was nice of you to wish him a happy birthday even after he was mean."

Karma rests her head on Amy's shoulder. "He's still my brother," she says. "Even if he is a buttface."

Amy leans back, an evil glint in her eye. " _You're_  a buttface," she says. And then she suddenly dashes back to the bed, diving onto it. "So whatcha wanna do,  _buttface?"_

And that sets Karma off, as Amy knew it would. There's TV or a dance party, or figuring out the floor plans of their future matching houses, or planning how to embarrass Zen at school on Monday or…

Or Karma plops down on the bed next to Amy and squeezes her tight. "I love you, you know."

Amy nods and Karma smiles.

Maybe her parents didn't choose her. But Amy did.

And Karma's pretty sure - no, she's  _positive_  - that's all that will ever matter to her.

* * *

Amy can't bring herself to knock.

To hell with knocking. She can't bring herself to get out of the truck and walk to the door.

And sure, there's been plenty of times over the last couple of months when she couldn't bring herself to get out of Lightning, but most of those times involved Reagan's lips on hers and hands roaming a bit and all sorts of things that most definitely should  _not_  happen in the Ashcroft's driveway.

So, she can't bring herself to knock. And she sits in the passenger seat, staring at the Ashcroft's front door like it's the Hellmouth itself, about to open up and unleash all manner of death, destruction, and pain.

Maybe, she thinks, I should stop being so over-dramatic.

Or maybe she should just stop binge watching  _Buffy_  when she's fighting with Karma.

And she wonders, then, if  _they're_  even fighting. After all, it wasn't Amy who was vicious and mean. It wasn't Amy who was territorial.

In Karma's mind - a place Amy is sometimes frightened to admit that she knows as well as she does - it's Reagan who's the enemy.

Yeah, she thinks. That'll last about five minutes. Right up to the point where Amy doesn't agree that Reagan is Satan and must be cast out of their lives immediately.

Is it any wonder she can't knock?

Reagan regards her girlfriend from behind the wheel and resists the urge to ask her - for at least the twentieth time - if she's sure about this. She knows Amy feels the need to talk to Karma, the need to try and work it all out.

But some things, Reagan knows, can't be worked out in an afternoon.

Or at all.

"You don't actually have to do this,  _now_ , you know," Reagan says, breaking the silence. "I know she said you two have to talk, but there's nothing that says you have to do it  _now_."

Maybe, Reagan thinks, later would be better.

Give Karma some time to cool off. Some time to forget.

_I'd never tell you anything again_

OK, so maybe forgetting is off the table.

"Maybe," Reagan says," you'd be better off if you just gave her a little space. A little time to, you know,  _process_. She's had a lot dumped on her in the last twenty-four hours."

Amy shakes her head, still staring at the door. "Karma's like wine," she says. "You have to let her age just right. Too little time… and you end up in aborted threesomes and getting labelled a sex addict. Too much time, you end up faking being a fake lesbian."

Reagan arches an eyebrow that Amy can practically  _hear_  creeping up.

"It's a tricky process," she says. "Like the three little bears and their porridge. You've got to get it just right."

Reagan shakes her head. Being Karma's friend sounds like more work than it's worth.

"It's not as bad as it sounds." Amy says, like she can read Reagan's mind. "Yeah, it can be exhausting. And aggravating. And frustrating." She laughs. "OK, maybe it is as bad as it sounds,  _sometimes_."

"But you're still going to go in there and talk to her, aren't you?"

Amy glances at her quickly and then turns back to the front door.

"I was ten," she says, "the first time I walked in without knocking. I just strolled in, walked right past Molly and Lucas, flipped off Zen as I went up the stairs. Walked into her room and plopped down on the bed."

Reagan smiles at the image of ten-year-old Amy giving Zen the finger.

"Thing was," Amy says. "Karma had forgotten to mention she wasn't going to be home. She was visiting her Gam-Gam. So, when she did get home, she found me curled up on her bed, with one of her stupid teenie-bopper magazines under my face." Amy smiles lightly at the memory. "I had drooled all over a picture of Lance Bass. Karma thought it meant I had a crush on him."

Reagan can't help but laugh. "Gaydar at an early age, Shrimps."

Amy rolls her eyes. "I never liked him," she says. "Or any of them. Karma liked Joey Fatone." A smirk steals across the blonde's face. "I used to call him Joey Fat-One just to piss her off."

Back then, Amy had to listen to an entire Justin Timberlake CD to get Karma to forgive her.

She doesn't expect it to be that easy this time.

"Molly offered to give me a key once," Amy says. "I turned her down.  _That_  would have been weird."

Yeah, she thinks, a  _key_  would've been weird.

Everything else? Perfectly normal.

Like sitting here, in the driveway, unable to move, unable to go knock on a door she's banged on a thousand times in her life.

When, Amy wonders, did things get  _this_  weird?

_Let's be lesbians!_

Oh, yeah.

"You know, Shrimps… talking to her would be a lot easier if you actually, you know, got out of the truck?"

Amy nods, but doesn't move. Her eyes catch sight of the dashboard, of the suddenly empty spot where their picture used to be. "Hey," she says. "What happened to our picture?"

"What?" Reagan says. "Oh,  _that_. I was loading up some equipment in here the other night and I tore it with a speaker. No biggie. I'll just print another one."

Amy nods. It's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

One that would ring so much truer if she hadn't seen the picture yesterday.

Before Karma.

* * *

Farrah stares at Karma, and sighs. This, she thinks, is what happens with permissive parents.

"Karma, your parents are downstairs. They let you stay the night, but now they want you to come home."

Karma shakes her head, and red curls spark all over. In her haste to escape Zen and his meanness, she forgot to pack her hairbrush, and none of Amy's are tough enough to make it through the jungle that is nine-year-old Karma's hair.

"Karma, sweetie," Farrah says, trying to maintain her patience. "They're not  _asking_  you to come home. They're tell…" she trails off as her eyes land on Karma's arm. "Karma, what's that around your wrist?"

"A belt," Karma answers. Farrah takes a moment to recognize it's the simplest answer the girl's ever given her.

She waits a moment more to see if there's going to be any more explanation and when none comes… "And why is it looped around Amy's bed-post?"

"I'm a bed-hugger," Karma says, as if that simply answers that.

Farrah turns to Amy. It's not the first time she's needed her daughter's help in translating Karma-ese. "Amy?"

"We saw a documentary in science," Amy says, her eyes lighting up at the d-word. "There were these people that were protesting trees getting cut down and they used chains to tie themselves to the trees. They were called -"

"Tree huggers," Farrah says. "Got it." She looks at Karma, considering her options. "So, what's the plan, Karma? You're just going to belt yourself to Amy's bed until your parents leave?"

Karma nods. Silence, she's decided is more 'protest'-appropriate.

"OK, then," Farrah says. "I'm going to go talk to your parents. Amy? If you could?" She nods in Karma's direction and Amy understands.

Talk some sense into your friend. Get her to stop being so ridiculous.

It's not the first time someone's asked that of Amy. And, even at nine, she knows it won't be the last.

Once Farrah is out of the room, Amy kneels down in front of Karma, poking her in the leg.

"You know this is kinda crazy, right Karms?" she aks. Karma simply stares straight ahead. "I mean you know I love you and you can stay here whenever, but they're still your parents and you know they lov-"

"I don't  _know_ ," Karma says. "And you don't either."

Amy falls back at the tone in her best friend's voice. Karma's never yelled at her, she's never even snapped at her.

"I don't know what, Karma?"

"You don't know what it's like," Karma snaps. She's heard Zen's little 'they chose me' bit one too many times. And it's sunk in so badly, the young girl has actually started to believe it.

Amy reaches out for her hand, but Karma snatches it back.

"You don't know what it's like to not be good enough," the redhead says. "You don't know what it's like to not be enough for your own parents, for them to actually want you..."

Karma trails off as she sees the change coming over Amy's face. She's nine, so she doesn't know for sure what the word 'crumbles' means, but she's got a pretty good idea that thing her best friend's face is doing right now fits the word.

She's only seen Amy look like that once before. But that was when her father…

Oh.

Oh, no.

It hits Karma then, an eighteen-wheeler spinning out and slamming into her heart as she realizes just what she said. Her hands fly to the belt hooking her to Amy's bed and she's scrambling to undo it even as Amy crumples to the floor, her stare gone vacant and lost.

Even at nine, Karma knows her friend isn't there right now.

Free of the belt, she dives across the floor, wrapping her arms around Amy and pulling her close. "I'm so sorry, Aimes. I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean…"

It's the first time Karma every says those words to Amy.

It won't be the last.

And Amy's silence breaks - as  _she_  does - the quiet punctured by a pair of howl-like sobs as Amy shakes and buries her face in Karma's neck.

Farrah, Molly, and Lucas are through the door before the second sob has even finished echoing in the room. Karma releases Amy, allowing Farrah to scoop her up, and runs to her father, who lifts her off the floor into his arms.

"I'm sorry," Karma says. "I didn't mean…"

She looks back at her broken friend, still quaking in Farrah's arms. Karma knows she isn't the one who did it. It might have been her  _words_ , but this was all about Jack, because he was the one who left.

And Karma knows that will never be her. Because she can't understand how  _anyone_  could  _ever_  leave Amy.

But seeing her friend - her  _best_  friend - like that still hurts Karma in a way she's never felt before.

A way she hopes she never feels again.

As Farrah soothes Amy, and the blonde's tears slow to a trickle and her body stills in her mother's arms, Karma turns to Lucas.

"Daddy, you chose Zen." she says. "And you adopted him. Can we do that for Amy too? Because you chose him, right? And I can do that," Karma says. "I can make sure Amy  _always_  has a family."

Karma looks back at Amy and Farrah. She can't see her friend's face and she can't read the look on Farrah's.

"I can choose her," Karma says. "I  _do_. I choose her.  _Always_."

Her face buried in the crook of her mother's neck, Amy smiles a small smile.

They sound good, Karma's words. And she knows Karma means them.

And Amy wishes it was that simple. As simple as always choosing each other.

But she knows something it will take Karma years to figure out. Something that will finally only click for Karma after she feels the sting of Amy's hand across her cheek and hears the last four words she ever expected to hear.

Even at nine, Amy understands.

It's  _never_ that simple.

* * *

This, Amy thinks, is how it starts.

A simple little lie of omission. A tiny white lie to keep the peace.

No big lies. No giant cover-ups. Those come later.

It starts like this. With the little things.

"It's just a picture, Amy," Reagan says.

It was just a kiss. Just a dance. Just a song.

A kiss that changes everything. A dance that outs you to your mother. A song that should have been for you.

The little things.

"This is how it starts," Amy says softly. She runs a finger across the spot where the photo once hung. "You think that's all it is. It's just a picture. And then, before you know it, it's  _just_  thinks you never expected."

It's  _just_ a threesome. It's  _just_ a confession.

It's  _just_  sleeping with Liam.

Reagan hangs her head. "Shrimps…"

"It's OK," Amy says. "I know what you're trying to do. And I appreciate it." She sighs and shakes her head. " _This_  is why I didn't tell Karma," she says. "Because this is what happens. All this fucking drama and lies and everybody trying to make things OK even when they're not."

Amy looks up then, spots Karma standing in the open front door. She sees the look on her best friend's face. The way she's staring at Reagan.

"I chose me." she says quietly.

"What?" Reagan asks, confused.

"The night at the rave," Amy says. "I didn't choose  _you_. I didn't know you. I  _wanted_ to, but I didn't, not yet."

Karma's glare shifts, slides from Reagan to Amy.

"But I chose, that night. I chose to stop waiting for something that was never going to happen," Amy says. "I chose to stop being  _just_  her best friend."

Karma blinks. She can't hear them, Amy knows that.

But they've never needed words, have they?

"For the first time, ever," Amy says, "I chose  _me_. Instead of her. And I've done it every day since. Every time I didn't tell her. Every time I kept you a secret."

Reagan reaches over and laces her fingers with Amy's. She never once looks at Karma.

"I don't want to keep you a secret anymore," Amy says. Both girls laugh lightly, knowing that ship has sailed, but knowing what Amy means nonetheless. "I want Karma in my life. I'm not ready to just cut her loose, you have to know that."

Amy tears her eyes from Karma and looks at Reagan, who simply nods.

"But if it comes to it?" Amy says. "If I  _have_ to? I'm choosing me," she says. "I'm choosing  _us_."

Amy leans over, gives Reagan a quick kiss and slips out Lightning's door. She looks up and sees the Ashcroft's front door still open, but Karma is gone.

Amy was nine the first time Karma made her cry.

It wasn't intentional, Amy knows that.

She can only hope Karma knows that works both ways. That Karma knows Amy never meant to hurt her.

Even if that doesn't make it hurt any less.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma and Amy finally have it out about Reagan. Yeah, like that's a one argument and done topic...

The first time Amy tries to tell Karma about Reagan is the night of the rave.

She feels bad about hanging up on Karma. Yeah, it hurts to hear about Liam and his continuous stupidity and how Karma just keeps putting up with it.

(Seriously. You only get the girl because her  _soulmate_   _gives_  her to you and you can't even manage to say 'girlfriend'?)

(Douche.)

So, yeah, it hurts. But Amy's been dealing with that hurt for a while. Since Homecoming. Since the threesome. Since Karma asked  _her_ for the threesome.

Since their first kiss. Not hers and Karma's. Karma's and  _his_. The one Amy had to see, to watch, the one that turned her stomach inside out and upside down before she even understood why.

So, really, what was one more little bit of hurt? What was one more time of Karma running to her because Liam was an ass? What was more time of Karma assuming she'd be there to listen?

Just one more log on the fire.

One too fucking many logs, that's what it was.

And, to make it worse - if that was even possible - it wasn't even hearing about Liam that pained Amy. She could have lived with  _that_. What she couldn't live with was what those calls spelled out for her, in big fucking burning letters, about her best friend.

Yes, she had told Karma that she could talk to her about Liam. Yes, she had given her blessing and set Karma free.

What best friend wouldn't?

But what best friend wouldn't see the truth behind it? What best friend wouldn't say 'that's great of you to offer, but I know it would hurt you. And that's the  _last_  thing I would ever want to do.'

_Again_.

What best friend wouldn't - or  _couldn't_  - see the truth all over Amy's face, hear it in her every word, wouldn't - or  _couldn't_  - just fucking  _know_  that it was killing her inside?

What best friend?

Karma.

So, yeah, it hurt. And Amy dealt with it. And dealt with it. And listened to Shane when he told her how nuts it was, when he told her she was never going to move on if she was always there whenever Karma came calling. And still, she dealt with it.

Right up until the moment she couldn't deal anymore. And she wished Karma Mazel tov on the wedding, hung up on her, and asked Reagan out.

And when Karma calls her that night, apologizing profusely - again - Amy almost tells her.

The words are on the tip of her tongue.

_I might have met someone._

She tries to say them. She tries to let it slip out between 'It's OK, Karma' and 'I'm fine, Karma', and 'Yes, Liam is a massive tool, Karma' (and maybe she only  _thinks_  the last one, but that doesn't make it any less true).

Amy wants to tell her. She desperately wants to do this one normal thing. She wants to ramble on and on about Reagan, about how funny and sexy she is, about how they danced and talked and flirted (she even wants to run it by Karma, because she  _thinks_  it was flirting, but Amy's never  _sure_ ).

She wants this to be typical, the sort of thing best friends share. The sort of thing girls talk and giggle about over the phone every night all around the world.

The words are there. Right on the tip of her tongue,

And then she remembers flan. And a carnival. And a ball toss game and a ferris wheel ride and an ambulance and Oompa Loompa hands.

Amy remembers the raw, needy desperation in Karma's eyes. The over-the-top rampage of 'help' as her best friend tried to get her to move on.

And the words die there, right on the tip of her tongue.

Better not to say anything,  _yet_ , she thinks. She doesn't want to get Karma's hopes up.

Give it a date, Amy thinks. Maybe two.

After all, she reasons, she and Reagan might fizzle.

Things might not work out at all.

 

* * *

 

 

Amy has no idea what to say to Karma, which has been true so often lately, that she struggles to remember a time when it wasn't.

The last time she can remember being sure of anything, of  _knowing_  the words coming from her mouth aren't just there to smooth things over, to keep the peace, to soothe her best friend's guilty heart?

The night of the wedding.

_I love you._

And since then, and even  _before_  then, it was all secrets and avoidance and 'please, don't let me fuck up and let her know.'

And so, as she walks through the Ashcroft's front door, Amy has no idea what to say, but there's a part of her that's relieved, that's almost happy Karma knows about Reagan now.

It's one less secret to keep. One less thing to coat her words in lies and half-truths and polite bullshit about it'll all be OK.

Because it probably won't all be OK.

But then, Amy figures, it hasn't been OK in a while.

Karma waits for her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and staring through the window that looks out on the driveway. Her eyes are dark and narrow and focused tightly on the truck that still lingers in the drive.

Amy can see the anger in those eyes. And she knows it really isn't about the girl in the truck, it's not really about Reagan at all.

She hears the roar of Lightning's engine, the sound of the the tires against the pavement as Reagan pulls out.

And all Amy really wants to do is run back out the door, chase Reagan down the street until her girlfriend sees her and comes to a stop, throwing open the door so Amy can jump into the seat -  _her_  seat - and then take off again.

Just her, Reagan, and Lightning.

That's all she wants.

But the girl staring out the window?

Amy knows she  _needs_  her still. So she stays rooted to her spot and listens as the sounds of the truck fade away.

It's Karma who breaks the silence.

"Reagan didn't want to stay?"

Amy hardly recognizes Karma's voice. There's bitterness running through, anger rolling off every word.

All for her.

"I thought she'd come in with you," Karma says. "I figured she'd want to end what she started. Make sure she finishes  _us_  off."

Amy leans her back against the open door, ready to let Karma vent. Let her get it all out.  Whatever she's got, Amy's sure she can take it.  And she's prepared to. Amy's ready to take it all, to endure the verbal beating she knows is coming. She knows she's hurt Karma by keeping things a secret, by shutting her out.

So, she'll take it.

Karma clutches the counter, her knuckles white against the dark marble. "I'm surprised you're even here," she says. "Reagan doesn't even think I'm worth your time."

"Reagan doesn't make  _my_  decisions," Amy says softly. "And I've  _always_  thought you were worth my time."

Karma nods, but her eyes stay focused out the window. "Right," she says. "Right up until you found someone better to spend that time with."

"That's not tru -"

Karma cuts her off. "Spare me," she says. "It's so fucking  _obviously_  true. The moment you got Reagan, I disappeared. The moment you got the girl,  _I_  got shut out."

Amy wants to argue. But she can't. Karma's words aren't entirely true.

But they're not entirely wrong, either.

"You know what I keep coming back to?" Karma asks. "I keep wondering if you kept  _this_  from me, after the other  _thing_ , then what else is there? How many other things have  _you_  kept secret from me?"

Only one, Amy thinks.

"I keep getting these ridiculous ideas in my head," Karma says. "These crazy thoughts I know can't be true because you would  _never_  do those things and you would definitely  _never_  lie to me about it even if you did."

"There's nothing else, Karma."

Karma nods again, and turns to face Amy, her hands still clutching at the cool counter-top.

"I never thought there was something in the first place," she says. "And I was wrong.  _Twice._ "

Amy can see the pain and the anger behind Karma's eyes, can read the body language. And she knows she was right. This was never about Reagan.

This is all about  _her_.

"I didn't lie to hurt you - "

"Are you doing drugs now?"

The question is so surprising, so out of left field that Amy doesn't know what to do with it.

"What?"

Karma shrugs, letting go of the counter and crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I know, it's crazy right? But these are the things, the things that run through my mind."

Amy remembers what she said to Reagan about Karma being like wine. About letting her age 'just right'.

Clearly, Amy waited too long.

"I would never -"

Karma cuts her off. Again. "You would never lie to me, either," she says, and Amy pretends not to notice the eye roll. "So no to the drugs?"

Amy sighs and shakes her head.

"OK, so maybe you're partying too much?" Amy says nothing. "Been arrested?" Still nothing, and Amy can see Karma's jaw twitching. "So maybe you're just drinking every night, sneaking Reagan into your bedroom so you two can get plastered?"

Amy stiffens and Karma sees it, and so she pushes. "Maybe you're turning into a drunk?" she asks. "That  _does_  run in your family, right?"

Amy shifts against the door, taking an almost involuntary step back, gasping slightly.

There are lines, she thinks. No matter how pissed either of them has ever been, there are lines.

Amy never compares her to Zen. Never brings up the adoption, her parent's  _choice_.

Karma never goes  _near_  Jack. She never gets within spitting distance of Amy's father.

There are lines, Amy thinks.

At least there  _were_.

Amy can see the change roll over Karma's face, can see that she's already regretting the words, but no matter how much she may regret, she'll never take them back. Karma's too hurt and too proud and this thing is unraveling so fast that Amy's pretty sure there's going to be far worse things said.

She just hopes she's not the one to say them.

"OK, so not a druggie or a criminal or a drunk," Karma says. "Maybe it's not  _something_ , maybe it's  _someone_. You got another girlfriend hidden away?"

Amy shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

"How about a boyfriend, then? You are the 'sexual hulk', right?" Amy doesn't flinch. "No, probably not. If you haven't had time for  _me,_ I doubt you'd have time for other relationships."

Karma's eyes flicker and Amy knows what's coming.

"Hook-ups?" she asks. "Have you gone and become Hester's female Liam?" Karma can't hide the bite in her voice as she says her boyfriend's name. "Is that it,  _Aimes_? Did you finally go and lose that pesky virginity?"

It's not even a flinch. Barely a blink. It's hardly anything.

But it stands in the face of ten years. And with all that history, even 'not even a flinch'?

It's enough.

"Oh, my God," Karma says, one hand flying to her mouth, the angry spiteful facade cracking and Amy swears she can see her best friend's heart. "You…" Karma stares down at the floor, her breath coming in shallow huffs.

Amy only had one secret left.

And then, it seemed, there were none.

"Karma…"

Amy lets her thoughts trail off. She doesn't know what to say, she doesn't even know what she was  _thinking_  of saying.

In all the times she imagined Karma finding out about her and Liam - and let's face it, she thinks, Karma was always going to find out - this was not a scenario she ever thought of.

She always figured it would be Liam and his guilt and 'we're only as sick as our secrets' shit who would crack.

But now, staring it in the face, Amy's got no fucking idea what to say.

Sorry, Karms. But, hey, at least we lost it to the same guy.

We always share everything, right?

Karma leans back against the counter, collecting herself. "You…" She squeezes her eyes shut, trying - and failing  _spectacularly_  - to drive out the images suddenly dancing through her mind. "You… and…"

And Amy waits. Waits for the question. The one she's dreaded for months, the one she has no idea how to answer. There's no good lie. No believable bullshit she can spin to make this go away. There's just that question.

_Who?_

"You and…  _her_ ," Karma says, and the way she spits out the word, it seems like it's biting and clawing and drawing blood as it rolls out.

And Amy feels horrible.

Horrible that she can suddenly breathe again. Horrible that her world isn't ending just yet.

Horrible that Karma still trusts her enough that the truth - that the  _possibility_  of the truth - never even crossed her mind.

Karma leans back and runs her hands through her hair, pulling it tight and letting it fall against her back. "Reagan said it," she says. "She said she could give you the one thing I can't. But I…" She blinks her eyes against the thoughts she can't push away.

"It's not like that, Karma," Amy says.

"You're right," Karma says. "It's not like  _that_. Because, clearly, sex isn't the  _only_  thing she can give you that I can't. And it's sure as hell not the only thing you're giving her that you don't give me." She looks at Amy and the confusion and loss on her face almost kills the blonde. "You've told her  _everything_ ," Karma says, "and you kept  _this_  from me?"

"I'm sorry," Amy says.

It's the only thing that comes to mind. She's trying to save a friendship. She's trying to placate Karma, to smooth things over, to let them move on.

Amy wants all that. She  _needs_ all that. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. That doesn't mean that a part of her - a big part that grows bigger by the day, she thinks - doesn't want to tell Karma to suck it up. To remind her 'best friend' that really, who Amy does or doesn't sleep with is none of her business.

"I'm sorry," she says again.

It's what she needs to say. But that doesn't mean the words don't burn as they cross her lips.

"You think  _that's_  what I want?" Karma asks. "You think I want an apology? I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to be  _her_. My friend.  _My_ Amy."

"I am -"

But Karma's not listening. She's pushing off the counter and pacing across the room, her bare feet padding softly across the floor.

"No," she says. "You're  _not_. That girl? She never kept things from me. She never shut me out. She said our friendship always came first and I believed her."

Amy starts to protest, starts to argue that of course their friendship comes first.

But she thinks of Reagan. And she knows that would be another lie.

"If you didn't matter, Karma, I wouldn't be here."

Karma pauses, halfway back to the counter " _Matter_?" She shakes her head. "Lauren matters. Shane matters. Your mom, hell, Bruce - they matter." Karma brings her head up and Amy can see the tears pricking at her eyes. "We're supposed to do  _more_  than  _matter_."

"We  _do_ ," Amy says. "You're my best friend, Karma. You know I love you."

"I don't  _know_  anything anymore," Karma says. "You spend two months keeping this huge secret from me and you think I  _know_  anything?" She makes it back the counter, pressing her hands against the top. "I never made a secret of anything with you," she says. "Even the worst parts of me, the things even  _I_ don't like, I never hid them from you."

Amy takes a step forward, reaching out. And she tries not to let it hurt when Karma moves a step away.

She tries to focus on the fact that it was just one. Just one step.

But all she can think is that it's just the  _first_.

"You've always come first," Karma says. "Always."

Amy stops. And then takes a step back.

She remembers when she thought she could take whatever Karma could dish out.

She really thought she could.

But she was wrong.

The call the night of the rave was one too many logs on the fire.

But that word?  _Always?_

That's not a log. That's a fucking tree.

And suddenly, faster than even she can believe, Amy finds that she can't stand the fire anymore.

"Bullshit."

Karma's head comes up and her eyes widen. "What?"

"Bullshit," Amy repeats. She remembers the way going off on Karma at lunch yesterday gave her that liberated, free feeling.

Bullshit, it seems, does the same thing.

"I've  _always_  come first?" she asks, and Karma nods, but Amy can see it in her eyes. Karma knows she said the wrong thing. She might not know exactly what it was, but she  _knows_.

Amy takes one more step toward Karma, but this time it's not for an embrace, not for comfort.

She wants to be close, she wants Karma to know how serious she is.

She wants Karma to  _hear_  her.

"I haven't come first since the moment Liam Booker realized you existed."

 

* * *

 

 

The last time Amy tries to tell Karma about Reagan, it's Liam that fucks it up.

Big shock there.

It's Wednesday, two days before date number four.

"You're going where?" Shane asks. He leans against the locker next to Amy's, absently jiggling the handle on her open locker door.

"Bowling," Amy says, for the  _fourth_  time since Shane started peppering her with invitations and pleading and begging to come to his party on Friday.

Shane's eyes narrow and his nose crinkles in distaste. "So let me get this perfectly straight," he says. "You're not going to come to my party because you're going bowling? Like renting shoes, sticking your hands on someone else's sweaty ball, bending over in totally unflattering ways bowling?"

Amy nods. She's slightly amazed that Shane can even make bowling into something vaguely sexual.

"With Reagan," she says. "And her friends."

Shane's eyes are like little jack-in-the-boxes, springing open so fast, Amy fears his lids might snap off. "Her  _friends?_ "

And suddenly, Amy's worried because Shane has that giddy, proud-gay-papa look, the one he always gets before he starts clapping like a circus seal and rambling on about how far his little baby-gay has come.

"I didn't know," he says. "I mean, Reagan  _is_  a lesbian and they do move fast, but meeting the friends already?" Shane grins and Amy can't help but bask in the genuine warmth of it. "You officially have my permission to skip the party," he says. "Bowl, little lesbian,  _bowl_."

Amy rolls her eyes, but inside she's even giddier than he is. Meeting the friends is a big deal - gay or straight - and as big a step as it, she feel's like she's ready. Like  _they're_ ready.

"Thanks for the permission,  _dad_ ," she says, stuffing her notebook in her locker. "There's just one problem. The date's Friday night."

Shane's nose does that crinkly thing again. "I thought we'd already established that?"

"Yeah, well… Friday night…" Shane just stares at her wide-eyed and lost. "Friday nights? Me? A certain redhead you can't stand?"

Understanding lights Shane's face and then a frown darkens it again. " _Please_  tell me," he says, "that you are not blowing off meeting Reagan's friends to have girl's night with…  _her_."

Amy shakes her head quickly. "No," she says emphatically. "I wasn't even thinking about it. But Karma's been talking about this night for the last week and a half, and if…  _when_  I cancel, I'm going to have to tell her why…"

"And she still doesn't know about Reagan?"

Amy shakes her head again. "No," she says. "And I don't know how to tell her."

"Tell who what?"

Karma's voice over her shoulder startles Amy and she slams her locker, narrowly missing catching Shane's fingers in the door.

She turns to face her best friend. "Um… I…"

Shane, for once, uses his mouth to do something other than piss Amy off. "She doesn't know how to tell Lauren that she snores and it's keeping her up at night."

Amy shoots Shane a  _what the fuck_  look, but then runs with it because, really, it beats the alternative.

"Right," she says. "You know, we've started sort of getting along and I don't know how to… you know… put it… nicely." She nods and grins goofily at Karma. "You know me and tact, we're not too well acquainted."

Karma laughs. "That's true," she says. "But maybe that's not bad. I mean, it  _is_  Lauren, right?" Karma shudders a little at the name. "Just march in there and tell her the truth. And don't beat around the bush like you usually do. Just rip that band-aid right off."

"Yeah, Amy," Shane says. "Rip it. Rip it good."

Amy glares at him and wonders why exactly it is she's still friends with him.

"Speaking of telling people things," Karma says, "wait till I tell you my news."

Amy regards her best friend for a moment. And she quickly picks up on all the tell-tale signs.

Karma's grinning from ear to ear.

She's hopping - no, practically  _bouncing_  - in place.

Her eyes are dancing in that 'guess who's having a super sexy secret affair' way they have that almost always means trouble and/or heartbreak for Amy.

So, clearly, this 'news'?

It's all about Liam.

But then, when isn't it?

"Let me guess," Amy says. "Liam finally managed to get 'girlfriend' all the way out of his mouth?"

"Yeah," Shane joins in. "But only when he does a little finger snap, wiggles those surprisingly girlish hips of his and says 'you go, girlfriend.'"

Karma glares at him, which is good because it means she misses the laugh Amy's trying to stifle.

"Or," Shane says, "maybe not?"

"He invited me to dinner," Karma says. She pauses, waits until both Amy and Shane look officially underwhelmed - because you know that  _is_ what couples do - and then she drops what, to Karma, is a massive fucking bomb.

"Dinner," she says, "at  _his house_."

Amy's too busy trying to wipe the images of Casa de Booker that involuntarily flood her mind, that she misses the double arched brows on Shane's face.

"This is  _it,_ " Karma says. "He's finally going to introduce me to his family."

"That's… great, Karms," Amy says, trying not to wonder how Liam plans to explain the momster.

"I  _know_ ," Karma says. "He just asked me before last period. Friday night at his place  _and_ he's going to take me out to get a new dress just for the occasion."

Amy resists the urge to mention the one hanging in her closet that Karma could borrow. And then return to Liam's sis..moth… whatever the fuck that woman is.

"Wait," Shane says. "Friday?" he asks, poking Amy gently in the side.

Karma nods. And Amy doesn't need Shane's jabbing fingers to catch on.

Friday. Girl's night.

The girl's night Karma's spent ten days obsessing about. The girl's night Amy's been stressing about cancelling for the last three days.

The girl's night Karma just basically blew off without - it would seem - a second thought.

Amy's off the hook.

Now, if she just knew whether to feel crappy or relieved.

"Shit," Karma says as the bell rings. "I'm going to be late for math." She hugs Amy and nods at Shane. "See you at lunch?"

Amy and Shane both nod, watching her bounce off down the hall.

"Guess that solves that problem," Amy says. She's grateful for the reprieve, but she has to admit that coming in second to Liam -  _again_  - still stings.

Not as much as it once did. But still...

Shane nods as he holds out an arm for her. "But it creates a whole new one for you," he says.

"What's that?" Amy asks, slinging her arm through his as they make their way down the hall.

"Liam's family is out of town this weekend," Shane mutters. "So whatever it is he has planned for him, Karma, and his empty house? It's not a meet and greet, that's for sure."

Amy sighs. Karma's going to be pissed. And heartbroken. And desperate for someone to drag into her emotional quicksand.

"Sucks for her," Amy says, and she doesn't mean it as unsympathetically as it sounds.

But she does make a mental note to forget her cell phone at home on Friday night.

 

* * *

 

 

Since the moment she woke up next to Liam, Amy has felt guilty.

And she should, she knows that. She did something wrong. Something possibly unforgivable. And she knows that someday, she's going to have to pay for that.

But today?

Today is not that day.

Today is the day when Amy forgets the way the scales have tipped. Today is the day when Amy stops being 'OK' with everything because she doesn't have the moral high ground anymore.

Today is the day Amy says a million things she's wanted to say for what seems like a million years.

"I haven't come first since the moment Liam Booker realized you existed."

Amy snaps the words off like a whip and she can practically see them draw blood. Karma takes another step back, but Amy matches her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about losing my virginity," she says. "I was just waiting for the right time. You know, like a wedding? Or after a heartbreaking confession?"

Karma blanches and starts to speak, but Amy doesn't give her the chance.

"And I'm sorry if I shut you out. But let's face it, Karma… there's no way I can keep something like this from you unless you  _let_  me."

The color rushes back to Karma's cheeks and she stands a little taller. "I  _let_  you?"

Amy nods, a part of her surprisingly happy that Karma's at least fighting back.

"Yeah," she says. "How else do you explain you not noticing something was up? You were so busy with Liam, you didn't have the  _time_  to see something was going on with me."

"Is that what this is about?" Karma asks. "You trying to get my attention?"

"No," Amy yells and Karma falls back. Amy never yells. She raises her voice, gets loud, but she  _never_  yells. "This is about me being in love. This is about me having someone who loves me back." She's practically in Karma's face. "This is about  _me_. Not  _you_."

Amy growls and turns, frustrated and angry and tired of all this shit.

But Karma's not quite done.

"Bullshit," Karma says, drawing out the word, clearly relishing her chance to turn it around on Amy. "You say that like it's never about you, but it's  _always_  about you," she says. "Ever since you told me you loved me, it's all been about you."

Amy wheels back around and for a second - just  _one_  - Karma's afraid.

"It was you I came to the morning after the wedding," Karma says. "It was you I stalked to the drugstore, you I wrote that song for, you I tried to help move on." It's her turn to step closer to Amy. "I did everything for  _you_ and our friendship." She pauses, mostly for dramatic effect because, even in the heat of it, she's still Karma. "I gave him up  _for you_."

Amy doesn't have to ask who 'him' is. She can still hear the words in her head.

_I knew I couldn't be with Liam and keep our friendship._

_So I chose you._

"Fuck you,," Amy says. "You didn't give him up, Karma. He  _dumped_  you. Because  _you_  lied to him. Over and over again. You made him fall in love with someone who never even existed."

"I exist," Karma says.

Amy nods. "Yeah, but Liam didn't fall in love with  _you_. He fell in love with a made-up, phony as he is, lesbian. He fell in love with a lie."

Amy knows she should stop. She knows, if she wants to save their friendship, this is where she needs to hit the brakes.

But she's fresh out of fucks to give.

"The only reason you 'chose' me, Karma, is because you didn't have  _another_  choice. I was the only one who would take you back."

There were always lines.

And Amy's about to cross another.

"I  _know_ you," she says. "Better than Liam ever will. And I  _still_  took you back. Every fucking time. After I outed myself on television. After you bailed on the threesome. After you told the school I was a fucking sex addict."

"I apologized for that," Karma says but it's nothing more than an automatic reaction and even to her own ears it sounds pathetic and weak.

"You think that makes it better?" Amy crosses the room, needing to be away from the other girl. "You threw me under the bus, Karma. Your first instinct - your  _only_  instinct - was to hurt  _me_  to protect  _him_."

Karma opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She doesn't have the words.

"Do you ever think about that night, Karma? The night of the wedding?"

Karma nods, slowly. She's caught off guard by the sudden change in gears, and she remembers where this went with Reagan.

She's afraid this is going to be worse.

"Do you know what I think about when I remember that night?" Amy asks.

Karma can't answer because none of the answers are good.

_Liam crawling out from under a table?_

_Confessing your love?_

_When I broke your heart?_

"When I think about that night," Amy says, blinking her eyes against the memories. "I think about what might have been. If Shane had kept his mouth shut. If he didn't tell Liam the truth."

Karma backs up until she hits the kitchen table.

She was right. This is going to be worse.

Amy continues, not even looking at Karma. "I think about how you didn't chase after me when I left my room. I think about how you went to  _him_ , and where you would've gone if he hadn't known. If he didn't dump you."

Karma wants to make it stop. She wants to tell Amy not to think about that. She wants to tell her she would've spent the night crying on Liam's shoulder, trying to figure out a way to fix their broken friendship.

She wants to.

But she can't.

Because she doesn't know if it's true. And Amy would never believe it, even if it was.

"I think," Amy says, "about where that would've left me." She realizes, maybe for the first time, that a part of her is almost grateful for that night with Liam.  That at least there was someone there. "I would've been alone, Karma. Not just that night." She looks at her best friend then. "I would've been alone.  _Always_."

Tears run down Karma's cheeks and, for the first time she can remember, Amy doesn't have the urge to wipe them away.

"I shut you out, Karma. I did." Amy blinks back her own tears. "Because I had to. Because I couldn't let myself be alone anymore."

Amy's never said this, not even to Reagan. She hopes Karma can realize that, she hopes her best friend can see through the anger and the pain and the layers upon layers of lies and see what she's trying to do.

She's trying to let her back in.

"You were my everything, Karma," Amy says. "My best friend, my family." She pauses, barely able to say the rest. "My  _love_."

Karma sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs. She can't stand anymore.

"For ten years, you were all that mattered. And then you were… almost…. gone," Amy says. hating that she's giving Karma even this much, hating even more that she's so wounded and hurt that she's not sure she'll ever get past it. "And then you were there again but you weren't happy. You wanted him. You missed him."

Karma's never hated Liam like she does in this moment.

"I wasn't enough, so l let you go," Amy says, a small smile creasing her lips. "It was the right thing to do. But… I couldn't just go on like this," she says. "I couldn't just sit around waiting for you to call me, waiting for you to come to your senses… waiting for  _you_."

"I never asked you to," Karma says.

"I know," Amy replies. "But that's all I had.  _You_  were all I had. Until…"

"Reagan," Karma says softly.

Amy shakes her head. "No," she says. "You keep thinking this is about you against Reagan. That this is just about girlfriend and best friend. But it's not. It's about Reagan and Lauren and Shane and Theo and my mom."

She can't help but smile at the thought of the people she loves. At the thought of the people who have become something she's never had outside of Karma.

Her family.

"I never wanted you out of my life, Karma. And I never wanted to hide my life from you," she says. "You are a huge, important part of my life. You always have been. And I want you to stay that way."

Amy walks to the door. She's drained and there's nothing left in her heart or her mind.

"I love Reagan," she says. "And I love you. And I want both of you in my life and in my heart. I hope you can believe that."

Karma stares but says nothing.

"I hope we'll see you tonight," Amy says, stepping through the door. She pauses, leaning against the frame. "I don't want you out of my life, Karms."

"You don't?" Karma's not sure what to think, what to believe.

Amy shakes her head. "No," she says. "But I just can't let you  _be_  my life anymore."

And then she's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to lie. This one hurt. And I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Next chapter - the party (finally).


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane's having a party and Karma spends the night getting progressively more and more drunk and dealing with more and more angst.

_**A/N:  Karma is exhausting to write.  Angst is exhausting to write.  Angst ridden Karma?  Yeah, exhausting.  Thanks to everyone for the reviews and kudos.  So, as promised, part one of the party...** _

 

Karma knows what her problem is.

_Besides_ the rampant insecurity, the occasional insensitivity, the more than occasional obliviousness.

She knows what her bigger problem is. Her  _biggest_.

She just can't leave well enough alone.

A problem, in Karma's world, is like a scab. A scab that she needs to pick at and dig at and, generally, aggravate to the point of pain and - sometimes - infection.

Problems are scabs she just can't let heal.

Especially problems with Amy.

That's why they can never go that long without talking after a fight. Why space and time are never options for them.

Because they're not options for  _her._

Like after the wedding.

After she broke Amy's heart. (And,  _technically_ , Liam's as well, but that somehow seems less and less important to her with every passing day.)

It was her mom who gave her the idea for a big gesture. It was Molly who told Karma about Lucas and his giant fire and Burning Man and their passion and all that.

Molly put the idea in her head. But it wasn't like Karma needed much in the way of convincing.

And then, there she was. Out on Amy's lawn, going all John Cusack and not once even considering how romantic the whole thing was, not once thinking about the fact that she was serenading her  _fake_  girlfriend instead of the boy she claimed she wanted.

Not once considering that the wound under that scab she was picking wasn't just hurting  _her_.

It wasn't until Karma saw Liam in the window - and Tommy hopping across the lawn- that she'd stopped singing. But she'd known long before that moment that the 'salt' to her pepper wasn't taking her big gesture quite as well as she'd hoped.

She's known Amy most of her life and maybe (no, not  _maybe_ ) she'd somehow missed something big (the  _biggest_ ) those weeks when they were faking it, but she still recognized the look on Amy's face in the window.

After all, she'd seen it just the night before.

But she didn't stop. Not when Shane and Lauren popped into view. Not when Amy's face crumpled. Karma kept on going, right through it all.

That scab wasn't going to pick itself.

Karma knows what her biggest issue is. She knows what kind of person she is and that  _isn't_  the kind of person who can back off and be patient and wait for things to right themselves.

She is trying though, really she is. There's nothing Karma wants more right now than do the right thing, the thing that won't make everything worse.

She doesn't want to water-board Amy's heart again.

She doesn't want to push her further into Reagan's arms or make herself seem any more like the horrible person Shane and Lauren already think she is.

Basically, Karma doesn't want to do Karma.

And she knows it. And knowing is half the battle, right?

Except, as Karma will discover by the end of the night,  _that's_  not the half of the battle she needs to worry about.

 

* * *

 

 

This is how Karma's world starts to end. Not with a bang. Not with a whimper.

With applause.

Amy told her once that the one thing she had really learned from faking it was this - people, Amy said, are idiots.

Karma had laughed and reminded her that, for the most part, Amy thought people were idiots  _before_  they'd faked anything.

But, as she watches Amy and Reagan step through the door to Shane's house, Karma's reminded of Amy's words. And she thinks Amy might have had a point.

They enter to applause. To a standing  _fucking_  ovation that starts in the corner of the room closest to the door and spreads like a virus, like some sick version of the wave cascading all around the room, until everyone is standing and cheering and whooping and hollering.

Karma's lurking across the room, tucked into the small alcove between the Harvey's refrigerator and stove - her own little rock and a hard place hiding spot. She can see everything.

The way they all cheer.

The way they high-five each other, like they had anything to do with it all.

The way some of the boys - led by Tommy, that ass - wolf whistle at the two girls. Karma can see Amy blush and Reagan glare.

And then there's Shane, hugging Amy, hugging Reagan, nodding at Lauren and Theo as they follow the couple of the hour through the door. Karma watches him, clearly in his element, as he plays the excited host.

He did that for her once. Not that long ago.

It feels like forever.

Liam's next to her, and Karma's not sure if he just appeared or if he's been there all along and she figures it doesn't much matter.

The show's the thing.

And then Shane's standing on a chair, clinking a spoon against a bottle of beer, hushing the cheers for the moment,

"It was just a few months ago," he says, "that many of us stood in this very room and… answered the call of history!"

Karma can see Lauren rolling her eyes at Shane's dramatics and thinks to herself that this might be the first time she and Satan's little ninja have ever agreed on something.

Shane's still rolling. "Together, we set out that night to elect our first ever same-sex Homecoming Queens, our first ever out and proud lesbian couple!"

Tommy and crew let out another cheer and Karma wonders - not for the first time - what Lauren ever saw in him.

"Of course," Shane says, "we all know things didn't exactly… work out…"

Karma keeps her eyes on Shane because she knows everyone else's eyes are on her.

She could look away. Look down. Frown. Show some shame, some humility.

_Fuck them_.

"But tonight," Shane says from atop his chair. "Tonight, we welcome the couple Hester deserves! Tonight we raise our glasses to Amy and Reagan!"

Liam reaches over and takes Karma's hand as another ovation erupts from the crowd.

She resists - just barely - the urge to yank her hand away.

"Tonight, we celebrate  _real_  love," Shane says. "Give it up! Give it up for Amy and Reagan!"

And the crowd - predictably - goes wild.

Liam leans into Karma and whispers into her ear. "They'd cheer anything he told them to," he says. "Shane's a maestro with the drunk idiots."

Karma nods. She knows that.

People  _are_ idiots. They'll let themselves get wrapped up in anything. They'll let themselves treat real people and real lives like the sort of thing they see on TV.

They'll 'ship' whoever's hot, whoever's the flavor of the week.

And then, when they're done, when they're bored?

The idiots will move on. It's  _easy_ for  _them_.

Try being the one they move on from.

Karma shrugs off Liam's hand and heads for the drinks, suddenly intent on becoming one of those drunk idiots as quickly and totally as possible. As she picks up the nearest bottle - vodka, she thinks - her eyes catch Amy's from across the room.

_I just can't let you_ be  _my life anymore_.

She pours herself a shot and drains it.

And by the time she slams the glass back down on the counter?

She can't see Amy anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

It's around drink number three - four, if you count the shot, but she's  _so_  not - that Karma finally figures it out.

All night long there's been something buzzing in the back of her brain, something digging at her, poking her into consciousness when all she wants to do is slip into the happy nothingness of her buzz.

She hasn't been able to figure it out, or make it stop, as she's drifted around the room, slowly swaying her way between the little cliques of people.

Most of them, she's noticed, don't seem to spare her even a thought. She doesn't hear the usual whispers, feel the usual side-eyed glances, pick up the usual bad juju that's been sent her way since the first time she kissed Liam in public.

Karma's gotten used to it. She's become accustomed to hearing her name in hushed tones, to feeling all those eyes on her - always from behind, because not a one of them has the balls to say or do anything to her face.

She's gotten used to it. And now that it's gone?

She almost misses it.

And she's going to need another drink before she can even consider what  _that_  says about her.

But now, it's not her name on everyone's lips. It's not her that everyone's sneaking peeks at.

It's  _them._ It's Reamy.

And, at first, Karma thinks that's what the buzzing is. That makes sense after all. Everything she'd done was for attention. For popularity.

She had it. She lost it. And now it's Amy's and Reagan's.

Sure, she still has the guy, the Ferrari of boyfriends.

Though, she does have to wonder - what's the point of having the Ferrari if none of your neighbors are even a little bit jealous?

Sure, it's cool and stylish and -  _sometimes_ \- a great ride.

But if you want to do anything - anything  _real_  - it's about as useful as tits on a bull.

So, Karma wonders if that's all the buzzing is. A little bit of jealousy and a little bit of marvelling at the irony. She was the one who wanted to be popular. She was the one who wasn't content with their Netflix watching, girl's night having, going to grow old together world of two.

_That_  was all Amy had ever wanted.

And now, it's Amy's name on everyone's tongue. It's Amy - whether she wants it or not - who's the belle of the ball.

It would be normal, expected even, for Karma to be jealous.

And, after drink number three, she realizes that yes, she  _is_ jealous. But not in  _that_ way.

It's Oliver who brings it home for her.

At first, she almost doesn't recognize him. Since joining drama club, Oliver has changed so drastically, Karma has to wonder if he's taking a page out of the faking it dossier.

The glasses are gone. The head down, silent shuffle across campus is history. Oliver doesn't blend in anymore, he doesn't just disappear into the crowd. Drama has given him something and he's run with it.

And now, here he is. At a Harvey party, commanding quite an audience.

It seems that Oliver has two claims to fame - his acting  _and_  being the only boy Amy Raudenfeld has ever kissed.

Liam could dispute that. But he never does.

Karma's grateful he has at least that much sense.

She pauses by the sliding glass doors that lead out to the Harvey backyard. Oliver is just beyond them, holding court in front of a gaggle of freshman girls, the ones who would normally never get an invite to Shane's party, but he wanted a big crowd tonight, for  _them_.

"It was a good kiss," Oliver says. "At least for me. I mean,  _obviously,_ Amy probably didn't enjoy it quite as much…"

Karma can see the self-deprecating grin on his face, the charming shrug of the shoulders. The way his captivated audience eats it all up.

People  _are_  idiots.

"I think that was what did it," Oliver says. "You know what I mean? I think our kiss was Amy's first clue that she might not be… quite as straight as she thought."

Karma wants to reach through the glass and throttle him.

Amy's first clue? Kissing him?  _Him?_

_I kissed her first, fucker_.

Though, considering the mess that's made of everything, Karma thinks, maybe she shouldn't be so quick to take credit.

She moves on, shaking her head and sipping drink number three - nearly gone now - but Oliver's words keep ringing in her ears.

And they're not the only ones.

"I hear they met at a rave."

"I heard it was a party."

"Amy made the first move, you know."

"That's just her style - being the go-getter."

"You know it. When Raudenfeld sees something she wants, she  _gets_  it."

She completes a full orbit of the room, ending up back at the drink table and that's when she finally pieces it together.

She's not jealous of the attention.

She's jealous of  _them_. Not Reagan and Amy.

Everyone else.

She's jealous of their sudden interest in the one person Karma's always known was the best of them. Of their sudden knowledge - more than her's - of  _her_  best friend's life.

Karma doesn't know where Reagan and Amy met. She doesn't know who asked who out. She doesn't know about their first date or why Reagan calls her 'Shrimps' or anything.

And she's not just jealous. She's angry. She's pissed that all these…  _idiots_ … seem to think they have some claim on Amy. They seem to think she's  _theirs_  somehow.

Amy's a go-getter? That's her style?

Three months ago, most people in this place couldn't have picked Amy out of a lineup if the other people in it were all guys.

And suddenly they  _know_  her? They care about her?

She matters?

Getting pushed out of Amy's life for Reagan?

Karma could almost live with that.

But this?

This is something altogether different.  _This_  is unacceptable.

Amy doesn't belong to the masses. Amy belongs to her.

And, apparently, to Reagan. Though Karma's still not convinced of that one.

It took Karma three drinks - twenty minutes - to figure it out.

It only takes her one more drink - all of forty-five seconds - to know what she's going to do about it.

She's going to remind them all - starting with Reagan.

She was there first. And she'll be there last.

 

* * *

 

 

Karma starts with the snacks.

She's pouring herself another drink - number five (and that's not counting the shot)- adding something fruity, cranberry maybe, to her vodka, when she sees Reagan at the table at the other end of the kitchen.

From the couple of times she and Amy visited Shane's house when they were together - and Karma almost chokes on  _that_ word - she recognizes the little table with snacks set out all across it as Mrs. Harvey's 'desk' for her many work-at-home jobs.

She has as many as four at a time, Karma remembers. Apparently, selling sex toys out of your trunk doesn't always pay the bills.

The second - and last - time Karma and Amy were here, Mrs. Harvey tried to get them each to take a little pocket vibrator, on the house. She mentioned something about even lesbians getting the itch and started explaining settings on the toys and then Shane quickly ushered the girls up to his room.

It's still the only time Karma's ever seen Shane blush.

Karma watches as Reagan fills up a small bowl with some non-descript snack mix and then weaves her way back through the crowd to the couch where Amy, Lauren, and Theo have set up camp.

Reagan sets the bowl down on Amy's lap and Karma is moving before she even realizes it.

Amy's never paid nearly enough attention to her allergy. From the time she was ten until she turned fourteen, Karma thinks she must have Epi'd Amy at least a half a dozen times, and taken food from her on probably twice as many occasions.

Without her, Amy might well be dead a few times over.

Can any of the idiots say that?

Karma reaches the couch in time and snatches the bowl from Amy's hand before the blonde can even take a bite.

"Ashcroft, what the fuck?" Lauren yells and Karma's mind flashes back to that morning.

The couch.

Reagan's nearly bare breasts.

Amy's lips. Her skin. The way her body moved atop Reagan…

"Um, Karma?" Amy's staring at her wide-eyed and her voice snaps Karma out of her fantasy -  _memory -_ and Karma looks at her. "I was kinda eating that? Or, I was going to, you know, before you yanked it out of my hand."

Karma feels the familiar tingle as eyes start to dance across her back. She should have known.

Any time she and Amy are within five feet of each other, the lookie-loos come a running.

Karma ignores Amy and turns to Reagan, answering the angry glare the older girl is giving her with one of her own.

"You could've killed her," Karma says. "Do you even think? You say you love her and then you just give her  _anything_?" Her hand trembles and the bowl shakes. "Amy has a potentially fatal - "

"Peanut allergy," Reagan says, cutting Karma off. "I know."

Five drinks may not be slurring her words yet - which surprises Karma a little - but they do seem to be working on the connection between her brain and her mouth as she feels like she's running on a five-second delay.

"You do?" she finally sputters out.

Reagan nods as she stands, gently taking the shaking bowl out of Karma's hands and handing it back to Amy. "Yup. Which is why  _I_ made the snack mix," she says. "Some dried fruit, chocolate, pretzels, and my secret ingredient."

"I swear to God," Lauren says from the other end of the couch. "If you say love, I'm going to puke."

Reagan shakes her head and laughs. "Nope," she says. "Nothing secret about my love," she says, speaking to Lauren, but  _looking_  at Karma. "The secret ingredient is doughnuts."

Amy's eyes light up. "Planter's?"

Reagan nods. "They were out of bacon this morning, so you'll have to live with Jalapeno."

If the handful of snack mix Amy shoves into her mouth is any indication, living with Jalapeno isn't a problem at all.

Reagan keeps watching Karma. "If it makes you feel any better, Karma, I come prepared too."

Karma watches as the older girl reaches into the pocket of her way-too-tight cut offs and tugs out an Epi-pen.

"I've got one on me at all times," Reagan says. "Plus one in my truck, one with my DJ gear, and one in my apartment."

"Beside table?" Theo asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively even as Lauren slugs him in the arm.

"Kitchen drawer," Reagan says, pausing for a moment. "We don't eat in bed."

"Not  _food_ at least!" It's Tommy, standing with some jock buddies a few feet from the couch. He earns himself a round of laughs from his cronies.

"Hey, Tommy," Reagan hollers. "Way I hear it, your last girlfriend had to teach you that you don't actually  _eat_ it. That true?"

Tommy shuts up and Karma spots a small smile on Lauren's face.

If things were different, Karma thinks, she could learn to like Reagan.

The older girl returns her attention to Karma. "It's nice that you're worried about Amy," she says, offering Karma a small smile. "But it's OK. She's safe with me."

Everyone stills - even Amy in mid-bite - and waits. It was just a comment, a girlfriend letting a best friend know that she wouldn't let anything happen to the girl they both care about.

Except that's  _not_  all it is, and everyone knows it.

So they grow silent, looking back and forth between the two girls, waiting for the explosion.

But it never comes.

Karma nods, drains the rest of drink number five, and mumbles out something that sounds vaguely like 'good' before she disappears back the way she came.

Even that five-second delay isn't enough to keep Karma from picking up  _exactly_  what Reagan's laying down.

And she knows.  She's not nearly drunk enough for this.

 

* * *

 

 

Liam finds her after drink number five and she lets him take her hand - drink number six is in her other one - and lead her upstairs to one of the bedrooms.

She's got no intention of doing  _anything_  with him - her earlier decree from the art room still stands - but she needs a break, some space, some air that's not full of Reagan and Amy and all the rest.

Liam steers her to the bed and as he guides her down on top of the comforter, Karma's stomach does a nauseous somersault and she wonders if it's  _always_ been like that with him and she just didn't recognize it. If she just mistook it for something else.

Something more.

He takes the drink from her hand and sets it on the nightstand, sitting himself down on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

"I'm sorry," he says. "About earlier, in the art room. That was shitty of me."

Karma doesn't lift her head or even look at him, she just stares at the ceiling.

It needs stars, she thinks.

"It seems like lately, everything I do is shitty," Liam says. He folds his hands in his lap and stares at the floor. "I don't think I'm making you happy."

You're not, Karma thinks, but she doesn't say it because that would be mean. And he's trying. And right now, the last thing she needs, or could take, is another enemy.

And - she knows - it's not entirely his fault.

"I know you think I'm ashamed of you or something," he says. "Or that this doesn't really mean anything to me because I won't introduce you to my… family." He spits out the word, like it offends him. "But that's not true. It's them," he says, "not you."

It's me, she thinks, not  _you_.

"I love you, Karma," he says and she does turn to look at him then. It's not the first time he's said it, but it's usually in a text or a voicemail and only rarely  _to_  her, at least not when their clothes are on. "I love you and I just want you to be OK."

He turns to look at her and she sees genuine concern in his eyes.

Sometimes - a lot of times, lately - Karma forgets that Liam is an actual person. That there's something to him beyond being the hottest guy in school and her Ferrari.

It hurts her that she does that.

It hurts her more that she  _can_.

"I'm fine," she says, five drinks making her tongue feel thick in her mouth. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Liam doesn't reply at first. Instead, he reaches down and takes her hand in his, Karma instinctively lacing her fingers through his.

He stares down at their entwined fingers for a moment before he speaks again. "I'm not completely clueless, you know."

"What?"

He ghosts a caress across her thumb, his eyes still lingering on their hands. "It's killing you, isn't it?" he asks. "Seeing them together."

Karma considers, just for a moment, asking who he means by 'them'. But she's had just enough to drink to make that little bit of feigned confusion - and the crap that would follow - too much fucking work.

"No," she says. And it's not a  _complete_  lie. Does it hurt? Yes. But it's not about that right now.

Liam drops her hand and stands up, running one hand through his hair. "I can see it," he says. " _Everyone_  can. They all think you're just pissed because now Amy's popular and you're not."

Karma lets her hand drift back down to her side. "And what do  _you_  think?"

Liam picks up her cup and drains half of drink number six in one gulp. "I think you're never going to be OK with it. You're never going to be able to deal with Amy loving someone as much as she loves you."

The words come unbidden from her lips. "It'll never happen," she says and the words hang their as they  _both_ wonder what she means.

Amy will never love someone as much as she loves Karma?

Or she'll never be OK with it?

Two days ago, Karma wouldn't have even thought of either question as being worthy of consideration.

Liam shoves his hands in his pockets and leans against the wall. "Why didn't you listen to me?" he asks. "I told you I didn't want to be responsible," he says. "I didn't want to be the one to come between you."

Karma wants to remind him that for all his weeks of protesting that exact thing, in the end, he did want it. He wanted her.

But that, at this point, is neither here nor there.

Karma makes no move to sit up. "You didn't come between us," she says, the lie tripping off her tongue with well-practiced ease. "Amy and I were never a couple. It wasn't real and you know it."

Liam looks at her and she can tell. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He didn't want the same answer he's gotten ever since this whole mess started.

He wanted the truth.

But Karma was fresh out of that.

"I know what you  _told_  me," he says. "But the way you act… actions really do speak louder, you know?"

"I chose you," she says. "I'm with you. I  _slept_ with  _you."_

"I know," he says softly as he walks to the door and opens it. "But let's face it, Karma. You've always been good at faking it."

She's grateful he's actually out of the room before she starts crying.

 

* * *

 

 

Karma hides out in Shane's room for the rest of drink number six.

Her tears have dried and her stomach has settled - as much as it will on five and a half drinks, she's such a fucking lightweight - when she rolls off the bed and heads for the stairs.

She's going to have to find Liam at some point. She doesn't think they just broke up, but she's not entirely sure and she knows that's not just from the five and a half drinks.

Karma knows she'll have to talk to him.

She also knows she's going to have to be much, much drunker for  _that._

Karma reaches the top of the stairs and she has to pause for a moment to make the railing stop moving. And then she looks down into the living room.

And the tears that were gone and the settled stomach?

Yeah. Screw that.

Reagan's apparently hijacked the music controls because she's standing behind the little makeshift DJ table Shane has set up. The dance and hip-hop club mixes have been replaced by something Karma knows but can't quite place…

Is that… Billy Joel?

_What the fuck_?

Lauren, Theo, Shane, and Amy - fucking  _Amy_? - are out in front of the table, arms interlocked, dancing in a makeshift kickline as the music blares.

And then Lauren and Amy step out of line, dashing up to the table and the three of them - the Raudenfeld-Cooper sisters and DJ Reagan - tip their heads together and wail, loudly, the chorus to  _Uptown Girl_.

_What the_ absolute  _fuck?_

They laugh as the chorus ends and Lauren wraps herself up in Theo's arms, Shane drops himself onto Duke's lap on the couch, and Amy…

Amy launches right into the next song, grooving in her own awkward - adorable (awkwordable?) way, singing the song right to Reagan.

And it's pitchy and horribly off key and the sort of thing Amy would  _never_  do in public, except she  _is_.

Karma slides down against the banister and sits on the top step. Amy glances up then and their eyes lock and used to make Karma feel safer and more loved than anything in the world, suddenly makes her feel like she's going to pass out right then and there.

And Karma suddenly finds herself reevaluating everything.

Because maybe Amy did belong to her, once. Maybe she was there first.

But Karma's not so sure she'll be there last.

She's not sure she'll be there past tonight.

 

* * *

 

 

Karma's standing in the back yard nursing drink number seven - or is it eight? she thinks there was another shot in there - staring at the swing when Shane finds her.

"If you're trying to move it with your mind," Shane says, "don't bother. I tried to do that when I was six. All I did was give myself a headache."

Karma keeps staring.

_It's official._

"Amy sent you to check up on me, didn't she?"

_She asked. I said yes._

"Whaaat?" Shane says. "Can't I just come out into my own backyard to talk to my frien…" He cuts himself off, knowing he can't sell it. "Yeah. She saw you on the stairs and didn't think you looked too good."

Once upon a time, Karma knows, Amy wouldn't have sent anyone else. She wouldn't have trusted anyone else to make sure Karma was truly OK.

"I'm fine," Karma says, her eyes never leaving the swing.

_Reamy is a thing._

"This is where it happened, isn't it?" she asks.

Shane looks at the swing, back to Karma, back to the swing. "Where what happened?"

"I saw the picture," she says. Saw it. Stole it. Tore it. "This is where Reamy became real."

Shane fidgets nervously in place. He told Amy he was the wrong person to check up on Karma. She needs someone sensitive, someone with patience.

Someone who gives a fuck.

"Yeah," he finally says. "They were just here hanging with me and Duke and Amy just blurted it out." He laughs. "I think she actually said 'wanna be my girl'."

Karma smiles, as best she can. "Sounds like her."

She downs the rest of drink number seven or eight in one breath.

"She looked happy in the picture," Karma says. "Happier than I've seen her in a while."

"She  _is_  happy," Shane says. "And you should be happy  _for_  her. That's what best friends do, right?"

Karma squeezes the empty red Solo cup in her hand, focusing on the feeling of plastic bending and buckling beneath her fingers. "I  _am_  happy for her, Shane."

"Really?" he asks. "Because that's not exactly what I hear."

Karma laughs, but it's short and harsh and forced. "Liam or Lauren?"

"What?"

"Liam or Lauren?" she asks again. "Who did you  _hear_  from? My  _boyfriend_  who seems to be convinced I'm in love with someone else or Amy's  _step_ -sister who likes to threaten me with fairy tales?"

"Both, actually," Shane admits. "Though Liam didn't really get into the whole 'love someone else bit'. He just said you weren't happy. And that it was Amy's fault."

Karma shakes her head. " _Your_  best friend doesn't seem to be too capable of taking responsibility for much, does he?"

It's Shane's turn to laugh, the first time he can remember laughing around Karma in a very long time. "I love Liam to death," he says, "but seeing everyone else's guilt instead of his own  _is_  his specialty."

Karma nods. She's known that about Liam almost from the beginning. "I'm not in love with Amy," she says.

"OK," Shane replies.

"You don't believe me."

Shane lets out a long breath. There's so much he could say here, so much he's  _wanted_  to say for so long. But Amy wanted him to check on Karma, not browbeat her.

"You liked to me - to  _all_ of us - for weeks, Karma," he says, trying his best to keep his tone neutral. "I'm not sure how you expect anyone to believe you about anything."

Karma nods again. "Fair enough," she says and it  _is_. She takes two quick steps and settles down onto the swing. "But it's not just not believing me," she says. "You don't  _like_  me."

Shane crosses in front of her and drops down onto the other end of the swing. He's at a loss here and he silently curses Amy for having him so whipped that he's actually having this conversation.

"You lied," Shane says. "And you hurt two people I really care about. And… even after you broke both their hearts, you still got exactly what you wanted." He pushes his feet against the ground, rocking the swing in a gentle arc. "So, yeah, I find it a little difficult to like you."

"Fair enough," Karma says, "again." She flips her cup upside down on her leg, drumming her fingers against the bottom in time with the motion of the swing. "I suppose if I tell you that wasn't my plan, you're not going to believe that either."

"I  _know_  that wasn't your plan, Karma." Shane stares straight ahead, but he can see her head snap around out of the corner of his eye. "But that almost makes it worse. Sometimes it's better if someone's horrible  _on purpose_. At least then you know they gave it - they gave  _you_  - some thought."

The swing glides through the air and Karma watches as her perspective shifts. Up. Down. Up. Down.

"Did you ever have feelings for Liam?" Karma asks, not oblivious to the irony of  _her_  asking  _him_.

"What?" Shane's feet hit the ground and he brings the swing to a stop. "Feelings? Liam?"

Karma looks at him then and for the first time he can ever remember, Shane sees something behind her eyes beyond the desire for popularity and acceptance and approval.

She understands.

"It was seventh grade," he says. "It was fleeting. And Liam is  _the_  straightest guy on the planet, so I knew…" Shane shrugs. "It was never going to happen."

Karma smiles. "That's why you and Amy get along so well," she says. "You knew how she felt."

"Amy's feelings were never the question, Karma."

She stares at the ground, not willing to let Shane see the tears that still come every time she thinks of how badly she fucked up with Amy.

"I told you," she says. "I'm not in love with her."

"Maybe," Shane says. "Maybe not. But even you have to admit that you're more than friends."

We were, Karma thinks.  _Were_.

"You want to know how I feel, Shane?" she asks. "I feel like I'm losing her by degrees. A little bit at a time." Karma scuffs her feet on the ground and wishes desperately for another drink. "Best friend, more than a friend, girlfriend… it doesn't matter. I'm losing her. All because of something  _I did_  and something I  _couldn't_ do."

Maybe it's the seven - eight? - drinks. Or maybe Karma's just tired of holding it in. Or maybe she just needs a friend and Shane will just have to do.

"Imagine if it were you and Liam," she says. "How would you feel?"

Shane doesn't have to imagine.

He's felt something like that every day since Liam and Karma met.

"You said I got everything I wanted," Karma says.

Shane nods. "Popularity. The hottest guy in school. Even now, everyone knows your name."

"I  _did_ want all that," she says, shocking him slightly with her honesty. "I  _needed_  something else, something I…" Karma can't hide the tears now. "You don't like me. Lauren hates me. Reagan… she'd just as soon kick my ass as look at me."

Shane can't disagree.

She stands up, wobbling slightly. "Liam  _says_ he loves me, but he loves a lie. He doesn't know me," Karma says. "He loves this idea he has of me in his head - one I put there." The cup in her hand cracks beneath her fingers. "That's not love. That's not what I need."

She looks Shane right in the eyes, refusing - finally - to be ashamed anymore. "You were wrong," she says. "I didn't get everything I wanted. I  _had_  it. And now, it's slipping away. And when I lose that… I won't have a thing."

It doesn't escape Shane's notice that she says 'when', not 'if'.

Karma turns and heads for the house. She'll get another drink. Or maybe two. Ten sounds like a nice round number for what she has to do.

She's going to lose. She  _knows_ that.

But she's not going down without a fight.

 

* * *

 

 

The fight, Karma quickly realizes, isn't going to last long.

And it's probably going to end ugly.

She spots Reagan and Amy almost immediately, dancing together in the living room. Amy's arms are around Reagan's waist and her head is on the older girl's shoulder.

It's the most peaceful Karma's seen Amy in months.

She remembers their dance from Homecoming. The way Amy's arms felt around her. How safe and loved she felt.

How she brushed that aside to stare at Liam fucking Booker.

_I'll make him fall in love with me._

Sometimes, when she's feeling particularly masochistic, Karma wonders what went through Amy's mind that night.

The terror of outing herself to her mother.

The pain of thinking Karma had fucked Liam.

The relief of finding out she hadn't.

And then, the pain. Again.

_I'll make him fall in love with me._

How Amy had kept her mouth shut, how she hadn't slapped her right upside the head, Karma will never know.

It must have taken some kind of willpower. Something beyond 'no I won't eat another cupcake' or 'I don't need to smoke anymore'.

Karma wishes she had that kind of willpower.

But she doesn't. She knows it. And soon, Amy will too.

She watches Amy and Reagan swaying together and she marvels at how they fit. How can someone neither of them even knew existed three months ago be such a perfect fit.

It's like Reagan was made for Amy.

Or to punish Karma.

Karma drains drink number nine and pours number ten. At this point, it's like pouring a cup of water in the ocean, but Karma doesn't care.

She takes a sip and feels her stomach lurch. It's a warning shot. And, for just a second, Karma considers pounding down number ten. She'd puke or pass out or both and Amy would, no doubt, come running.

Except, Karma  _does_  doubt.

And that might be the worst bit of it all.

She drops the cup back onto the table and before she loses her courage - as if nine drinks worth of it could fade that fast - Karma makes her move. She crosses the room as quickly as she can, in part out of determination and in part because if she slows or stops she might fall down.

There's a soft 'oh, shit' from behind her and she recognizes Lauren's voice and  _that's_  all the more reason to keep moving.

The plan - like even totally drunk Karma would do anything like this without a plan - is to tap Reagan on the shoulder, ask if she can cut in.

That's it. That's the extent of the plan.

It's a plan. She never said it was a  _good_  one.

She gets as far as walking up to them and then she sees Amy's face, her eyes shut, a contented smile playing on her lips.

_You should be happy for her._

_That's what best friends do, right?_

Right?

Not that Karma's surprised, but it's Reagan who notices her first. Amy's girlfriend - and  _God,_  how those words cut through Karma's mind - turns to her. "Karma?"

Amy's head snaps up, eyes popping open.

And, for the first time in months, Karma is sure Amy  _sees_  her.

"Karms?" Amy steps out of Reagan's arms, worry creasing her forehead. She's seen Karma in every way imaginable over the years. But this?

Broken. Lost. Done with it all.

_This_ is new.

"Karma?" Amy asks again. "You OK?"

"No."

It's one word. That's it. Karma wanted to say so much more. Everything she'd said to Shane. Every thought she had kept to herself and the ones she wouldn't even let herself think.

She wanted to say everything.

But, in the end, 'no' pretty much summed it up.

And then, everything seems to happen in slow-mo.

Her arm reaches out, wrapping around Amy's waist. Karma pulls the blonde to her, pressing their bodies flush.

Tomorrow, that will be the last thing Karma remembers.

Even after Liam shows her the video -  _videos_  - she won't remember anything past this moment. She won't remember anything past how good it felt to hold Amy again, how right it felt for them to be in each other's arms.

Karma won't remember whatever happened to leave Liam unconscious on Shane's living room floor.

She won't remember brushing Amy's hair behind her ear.

Karma will have forgotten whatever it was that made Lauren sob, curling up against Theo's chest like a broken China doll.

She won't remember the feel of her hand on the back of Amy's neck, drawing her closer. She won't remember the realization that lit up Amy's eyes as she figured out what Karma was about to do, even before Karma did.

Karma will see it on the video. She'll see herself guiding Amy's lips to her, pressing them together.

She will watch herself kiss Amy, just like she watched Reagan do it before.

In some ways, Karma will at least appreciate the symmetry of it.

But then she'll see that other thing she won't remember - Amy pushing her away, slapping her so hard that even tomorrow morning, merely  _seeing_  it will bring stinging tears to Karma's eyes.

And then Karma will see the look on Amy's face, the look she won't remember.

And she'll hear  _those_ words, the ones she won't believe she could ever forget.

That's when Karma will know.

This was one scab she should never have picked. Because this wound?

This one won't heal.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party from everyone else's POV. And a little cliffhanger.

_**Part I** _

The afternoon of the party, Amy can't help but feel a certain sense of pride.

After all, she makes it all the way home from Karma's house before she starts crying.

It's the little things, really. Small victories.

Amy had thought - obviously wrongly - that she'd cried her last tears over Karma. It had been a while - two months - since the last time. Since the night she set Karma free, since she shoved her best friend and Liam back together.

There were tears  _that_  night. Even after Karma had come to her, wanting to spend the last few minutes of her birthday with her best friend and not her boyfriend.

Even in her head that night, Amy couldn't help but notice. Best friend. Boyfriend.

Best friend. Separate.

Boyfriend. Together.

Just fucking perfect.

Amy had waved good-bye as Karma left that night - technically, the next morning - smiling at the joy on Karma's face. Amy knew Karma had reason to be happy - her birthday had ended in a way she couldn't have even hoped for.

She had her boyfriend. She had her best friend.

All was right with the world.

_Karma's_ world.

Amy's world? Right about then, Amy wasn't sure that would ever be right again.

And that's when the tears came, more than Amy could ever remember crying before. Even more than the night of the wedding.

Amy understood that. She knew why.

The night of the wedding, she had still had hope.

But since then, since Karma's birthday, there have been no more tears, even if there have been a couple of close calls.

The first time Amy saw Karma and Liam holding hands at school.

The first time she'd gone to Karma's house - unannounced - and found Liam there.

The first time Karma cancelled plans with her for  _him_.

The closest Amy ever came to crying again was a Thursday. She was supposed to meet Karma after third period so they could walk to PE together. Amy had been talking to Shane as they walked down the hall, well, it was mostly Shane talking and Amy listening because really, you couldn't shut the boy up and, though she'd  _never_ tell Shane, it reminded Amy of Karma.

Amy had always found an odd comfort in just letting Karma ramble.

Amy rounded the corner near Karma's locker and that was when she saw them. Karma was fishing for something in the back of her locker - which Amy knew was just her way of stalling as she always did before heading to the gym (Karma  _hates_  PE) - and Liam was with her.

He was standing behind Karma, one arm wrapped loosely around her waist, the other holding her locker open. Liam said something - Amy and Shane were too far away to hear - and Karma rolled her eyes and laughed, tipping her head back to give him her best ' _are you serious right now?'_  look.

Liam just shrugged, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and reached into her locker - without ever breaking the kiss - and pulled out the book Karma had been looking for.

Amy stopped dead and looked up and down the hall, finding it nearly deserted, only two or three other students, not a one of them looking at her or Karma or Liam.

It wasn't for show.

It wasn't for popularity. Or attention.

It was just for  _them._

Amy stayed rooted to her spot, unable to move forward, refusing to run away. Shane didn't even notice, he just kept rambling on about something or other and then about this guy he'd met at the coffee shop, and then something about his mother and a new 'plan your own funeral' business.

Amy heard about three words.

That was the moment, the one that made it real.

Even after she gave them her blessing, even after the night at the rave and hanging up on Karma, even after two-plus weeks of seeing Reagan, Amy had never quite let herself go  _there_.

In her mind, it was still Karma. And then, over there somewhere, there was Liam.

But there it was, right in front of her. The unavoidable, irrefutable proof.

It was Karma  _and_  Liam.

They weren't just some abstract thing Amy knew existed but didn't really  _know_  about. They weren't just that thing Karma rambled on and on about until she suddenly realized what she was doing and stopped, mumbling a 'sorry, sorry'.

They were real.

And yes, Amy was seeing Reagan, and yes, she was feeling better, like she was really moving on, she was even - dare she say it? - happy, happier than she could remember being in a quite a while.

She was even starting to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, things might work out for everyone.

But that didn't make it hurt any less.

Well… maybe  _a little_. Maybe the pain didn't linger. Maybe Amy didn't spend the rest of the day feeling like someone was slowly pinching off little pieces of her heart.

Maybe, that night, when she and Reagan spent six hours on the phone, Amy didn't spend the entire time thinking about how Liam had touched Karma, about the ease and familiarity of it, about how comfortable they'd seemed.

How much Liam and Karma reminder her of  _her_  and Karma.

Maybe  _later_  it hurt a little less. But right then? Right in that moment, for those two or three or ten seconds?

Amy couldn't remember anything ever hurting that much.

She felt the tears threatening, bubbling up behind her eyes. So she mumbled something to Shane about a forgotten book, spun on her heels and walked away.

Karma found her ten minutes later, in the locker room, already changed and ready to go.

"You OK?" Karma asked. "You didn't meet me like we planned."

"I'm fine," Amy said. "Forgot a book in my class."

Karma nodded, and started changing into her gym clothes, rambling on about something from her math class and how her parents were driving her nuts with all their talk about Zen and how Liam was still struggling with 'girlfriend' but he was kissing her every time he couldn't get the word out so it was OK…

"Oh," she said, suddenly realizing. "Sorry," she said. "Sorry."

Amy shook her head. "It's no biggie," she said.

"Really?" Karma asked, doing an  _almost_  good job of hiding the hopeful note to her voice.

"Yeah," Amy nodded. "I'm better," she said. "I'm getting over it."

And if Karma's smile suddenly twitched just a little, if there was just a hint of something… else… behind the 'Oh… OK," she answered with?

Amy never noticed.

* * *

It's Farrah who finds her and Amy's unbelievably grateful it's not Lauren or Reagan.

She's not quite sure she could handle that just yet.

Lauren would curse Karma, would tell Amy she should have finished the job, that she's risking everything to hang onto something that clearly isn't worth it.

Reagan would just hold her, just let her cry and shake and be an ugly mess, all because of the girl she once loved.

Amy's not sure which of those would be worse.

When Farrah finds her, Amy's curled up on her bed, blanket tucked tight under her chin. The tears aren't flowing quite as freely, the sobs aren't shaking the bed quite as hard. If someone looked quickly, just glanced in through the open door, they'd probably think Amy was just taking a nap.

And, maybe, Farrah doesn't always look as closely as she should. And, maybe - no, not  _maybe_  - she doesn't know her daughter as well as she'd like.

But this time?

This time, Farrah  _sees_.

She doesn't say anything as she crosses her daughter's room. Amy's eyes are open and they flick to her mother's face as Farrah slides down onto the bed next to her.

And that just slams the floodgates open again, a tortured sob slipping from Amy's lips as she pulls herself up, curling against Farrah, burying her face in the crook of her mother's neck as the older woman hugs her tightly.

Amy can't remember the last time her mother held her like this. And she doubts Farrah can either.

And that makes her cry just a little harder.

Farrah strokes a hand down Amy's back, tracing soft lines along the blonde's spine. She rests her cheek on top of her daughter's head, blonde hairs tickling her nose.

She doesn't say anything, just holds her daughter and waits.

Amy's sobs soon turn to watery, heaving hiccups and then to sporadic whimpers and then, finally, to soft shallow breaths.

"Amy, honey?" Farrah doesn't loosen her grip, doesn't let go of her daughter, not even a little bit. "Did something happen?" she asks. "Did you and Reagan have a fight?"

Amy shakes her head against her mother's neck and Farrah can't say she's surprised. She knows Amy loves Reagan and that if something - something  _serious_  - happened between them, Amy would be wrecked. But there's only one thing that can break Amy like  _this_.

Karma.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Farrah asks. And it kills her that she has to, that she doesn't just  _know_  what Amy wants to do, that she doesn't have the first real clue how her daughter handles her pain.

Is Amy a talker? Does she like to go through it all, bit by bit, discussing and analyzing and considering every little thing? Does she only feel better when she's talked it to death?

Or, maybe, she's like her father. Maybe she likes to joke in the face of it all. Maybe she likes to use that sarcasm of hers like a shield, a way to fend off the pain. And then, later, she turns it all inward, tearing herself down worse than anyone else ever could.

Farrah hopes -  _prays_  - that's not it.

She's dealt with that enough for one lifetime.

Maybe, Farrah thinks, Amy's the type that buries it. Shoves it down, even as she chokes on it, and then hopes it doesn't fester and rot and, finally, boil over and come rushing out.

Maybe, Farrah thinks, that's it. Maybe, she thinks, Amy's just like  _me_.

But Farrah doesn't  _know_.

Karma would.

And that just makes  _Farrah_  want to cry.

"It's nothing," Amy says, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm fine," she says, trying to sit up, but Farrah's grip doesn't give in the slightest. "Mom, really."

Farrah may not  _know_ , but she knows  _enough_  to know Amy's full of it.

"Really, nothing," Farrah says. "When I left this morning, you were fast asleep downstairs in Reagan's arms. And now you're sobbing and letting  _me_  hold you." It kills them both that Farrah can use  _that_  as a sign of how wrong something is. "Talk to me, Amy. Please?"

It's the 'please'. That's what does Amy in. That's what cracks the dam and lets it all come rushing out in one giant wave.

"I talked to Karma," she says. "She came over this morning and found Reagan here and she  _really_  didn't like that, but I told her how it was and Reagan introduced herself and then they went for coffee -"

"They?" Farrah interrupts. "As in Reagan  _and_  Karma?" Amy nods and Farrah lets out a sigh, as she wonders just who the hell thought  _that_  was a good idea. "Are they both still alive?"

Her smile says it's a joke. Her tone says it's not.

Amy lets out something that Farrah thinks is a laugh, but it's more of a watery gurgle than anything else. "Yeah," Amy says. "But it didn't go… well." She remembers the hurt in Reagan's eyes and the burning fury in Karma's. "And then when I tried to talk to Karma…"

"You two fought?"

Amy nods, but she's not sure today was a fight. She and Karma have fought before. They've said things to each other that would've ended most friendships, they've tossed around words like 'bitch' and 'hate', jabbed at  _almost_  every weak spot.

And Amy's never once doubted they'd come back from it. Back from it all.

And then there was  _today_.

"I told her she couldn't be my life anymore," Amy blurts, still shocked that she said it at all, even more shocked that she's telling Farrah. "And then I just left and I don't know…"

Amy trails off as it settles in. And, as it dawns on her - it's been at least an hour and Karma hasn't called, texted, or stalked her all the way home.

Even after the wedding…

This, Amy realizes, is worse than she thought.

This might be as bad as it ever gets.

"I'm sure you two will work it out," Farrah says. She squeezes Amy's shoulder and tries desperately to think of the right thing to say. "Things are just… different now," she says. "It'll take some time for everyone to adjust."

Amy nods. "Maybe," she says. Maybe not, she  _thinks_.

"Have you talked to your sister about it?" Farrah asks. "Or Reagan?"

"I can't," Amy says. "Lauren  _hates_  Karma. And Reagan… well… I don't think they'll be scheduling any more coffee clatches any time soon." Amy sniffles and tries to smile. "They're not exactly unbiased when it comes to Karma," she says. "Then again, neither are you, so…"

"That's not true," Farrah protests.

"It's not a big deal, mom," Amy says. "Even Karma knows how you feel about her. It's no secret that  _everyone_ in my life would rather Karma not be a part of it."

Farrah sits up, taking one of Amy's hands in hers. "Come with me," she says. "I want to show you something."

They both stand and Amy follows Farrah out into the hall and then into the room her mother and Bruce share. In the back of the room is the extra large walk-in closet Farrah had built when Amy was just a kid. The older woman leads Amy into it, flipping on the small row of lights on the ceiling.

"I haven't been in here in years," Amy says. "Not since Karma and I used to play hide and seek."

Farrah laughs, a small smile creasing her face at the memory. "This was always your favorite hiding spot," she says. "Right in the back, behind my shoes."

"Can you blame me?" Amy asks. "Karma never remembered to look in here, no matter how many times we played."

Farrah considers, for just a second, letting Amy in on the secret she's known for years.

Karma knew where Amy was, every single time. But the young redhead was a sucker for the way Amy smiled when she won.

Maybe a different day, Farrah thinks. Maybe.

As Amy lingers in the closet doorway, Farrah moves to the far end, pulling aside outfits she hasn't worn in years, some she's never worn at all, the occasional thing she doesn't even remember buying. She finally finds what she's looking for, in a large white garment bag way in the back.

"Help me with this?" She and Amy pull the bag down and Farrah holds it as Amy slides the zipper down.

Amy's breath catches in her throat as the bag opens. "Is that…?"

Farrah nods, tugging the bag off completely and holding the white lace and silk dress up between them. "My wedding dress," she says. "The  _first_ one."

The one, Amy knows, Farrah wore to marry Jack.

Her father.

Amy's only ever seen the dress in pictures and she can't remember the last time she even saw  _those_. The 'Jack years' aren't exactly a frequent discussion topic around the Raudenfeld - Cooper household.

"It's beautiful," Amy says, running one hand delicately down one of the perfectly tailored sleeves. She can imagine her mother in it, knows that even now, it probably fits perfectly.

"Your grandmother and I searched for this dress for months," Farrah says. "We looked everywhere from here to Houston and back again. And then we finally found it, in this little boutique just outside Dallas."

Amy looks up from the dress, eyes Farrah quizzically.

"When I came out of the fitting room, wearing this dress, your grandmother took one look at me and do you know what she said?" Amy shakes her head. "She told me it was far too perfect a dress to waste on a marriage that would never last."

* * *

Amy settles herself down on the edge of Farrah's bed, her mother's wedding dress draped across her lap.

And just when she thought this day couldn't get any weirder.

"Your grandmother  _hated_  your father," Farrah says. She's digging through a box from the top shelf of the closet. "Your grandmother, your Uncle Mike, your Aunt Lesley, most of your cousins…" Farrah pauses in her digging and crinkles her brow. "Pretty much the entire family, I guess. Though I think Uncle Rafe liked him."

Amy searches her memory. "Isn't he the one doing time?"

Farrah nods, resuming her search through the box. "Fifteen to twenty," she says. "I really should get out to the prison and see him…" She shakes her head, clearing thoughts of her wayward brother. "The point is, there wasn't a single person on my side of the church that morning that liked your father or thought I had any business marrying him."

"But you did it anyway," Amy says. The dress in her lap proves that.

And, if Amy thinks about it, so does  _she_.

"Yes, I did," Farrah says, leaving off the unspoken 'and we both know how  _that_  turned out'.

She pulls a large album from the box. It feels heavy in her hands and she tries to think of the last time she actually looked at it.

The thick layer of dust on the cover tells her all she needs to know.

Farrah drops the album on the bed next to Amy and starts flicking through the pages. She scans them all quickly, not wanting to linger too long. "By the time he left" she says as she turns the pages, "your father was a drunken, selfish little shit of a man. Exactly the man your grandmother always thought he was."

Amy's mind drifts, memories of the last time she saw  _him_ rising unbidden to the surface.

_You're the reason._

_I'm leaving because of you._

_Remember that. Remember, Amy._

There's not much Amy and her grandmother see eye-to-eye on. But she's pretty sure the old woman had her father pegged.

"There," Farrah says, slapping her hand down on a page. "Look," she says, pointing at a picture in the upper right corner of the page.

Amy shifts the dress in her lap so she can turn and see the picture. It's a little fuzzy and not all that well lit, but she can make it out.

A man, in hospital scrubs, holding a baby.

Her father. Holding  _her._

It's the first time, she thinks. that she's seen his face since he left. He looks younger in the picture, obviously, but there's something else. There's a life to him, a light in his eyes, a fullness to his face.

The man in the picture is her father. The man Amy knew, the one that  _left_  ?

He may as well have been her father's corpse.

"That was the day you were born," Farrah says. "Five minutes after, to be exact. I had a c-section, so I was… unavailable." She smiles, the memory one of the few she has of Jack that doesn't hurt. "Your father was the first person to hold you."

Amy stares at the picture. She wants it to match. She wants it to fit with her memories.

_Because of you. Remember that._

She wants to remember  _that_  man. The one who blamed her. The one who didn't love her, at least not enough to stay.

The man in the picture?

Amy can't believe  _he'd_  ever leave.

"Your grandmother did everything she could to talk me out of marrying your father," Farrah says. "And, all things considered, if I hadn't married him, my life might have been… easier."

There'd have been no Amy, Farrah thinks. No Lauren, no Bruce.

But there'd have been no 'a lot of other pain and shit and wreckage' too.

"The family -  _my_  family - saw your father in bits and pieces," Farrah says. "And, I'll admit, they weren't always the most flattering pieces. Jack didn't always… play well with others."

"Sounds like someone else I know," Amy says softly.

"I thought it might," Farrah replies. She slips her fingers behind the photo and tugs it free from the page. "What have Shane and Lauren and Reagan seen from Karma?"

The list, Amy knows, is long. And not altogether pretty.

Faking it.

Obsessing over Liam.

Using Amy. Being oblivious to her feelings. Causing her heartache and pain.

Breaking her heart. And then getting exactly what she wanted anyway.

"I know why they hate her," Amy says. She clutches the white dress in her lap.

"So I guess the question is," Farrah says, "why don't  _you_?"

* * *

It's not that Amy's never thought about it. It's not even that she's never  _felt_  it.

The night of the wedding, as she slipped beneath Liam, as she ignored how rough and wrong his lips felt on hers, as she fought off the urge to shove his hands away, as she pushed down the bile rising in her throat?

Right then? She  _did_  hate Karma.

She hated what Karma had done. She hated the person Karma had made her be, the things Karma had made her do, the lies she'd made her tell.

But, if she was being honest, Amy had to admit that, in that moment, she also hated Karma because it was easier than hating herself.

Why  _didn't_ she hate Karma now?

"Shane and Lauren and Reagan… they've only seen the last few months," she says to Farrah. "It's like coming into a TV show in season eight. You know what you see, you know how the characters act, you know how you feel about them. But you're missing so much."

Amy stares down at the photo Farrah still holds.

They're missing the  _big_  picture.

"You've been there all along," Farrah says. "You  _know_  Karma."

"So do you," Amy says back and she hopes her mother doesn't hear the snap in her tone, the slight rush of anger and frustration. "You've been there too. And you don't like her. You never have."

Farrah wishes she could protest, but she can't. She knows Amy isn't entirely wrong.

"I can't hate Karma because she was there for you," Farrah says. She slides the picture across the comforter toward Amy. "When your father left…"

Farrah lets out a deep breath. One she feels like she's been holding for most of the last ten years.

"I shut down," Amy says, her eyes never leaving the picture. "I crawled into a hole and didn't come out."

The two women look at each other,  _really_ look, maybe for the first time since Jack walked out on them.

"Karma was there," Amy says. "She was my lifeline. She was the only thing that kept me from falling so far down that hole I could never get back out."

Farrah nods. "She loved you," she says. "And she gave you something you could depend on. Even if that meant living with her particular brand of crazy and her drama and her… being  _Karma_ … you  _knew_  what you had in her."

Amy hears the sadness, the guilt, the regret in her mother's voice. Karma gave Amy everything Farrah couldn't.

But now, for the first time, Amy realizes it  _wasn't_  because Farrah didn't  _want_ to.

She reaches over and takes her mother's hand, both of them acutely aware that this is the most they've talked and touched in years.

"Your father and I were done long before he left," Farrah says. Her voice cracks and she blinks back tears. "He knew it, I knew it. And I could have…"

Farrah lets out one shuddering breath, pulling Amy's hand to her, clutching her daughter's hand to her chest.

"I couldn't end it," she finally says. "I couldn't do what had to be done because every time I looked at him, I saw the man in that picture. I didn't see the bits and pieces, I didn't see the things your grandmother saw."

Amy glances down at the picture, wondering why she can't ever remember her father smiling.

"Your father did it for both of us," Farrah says. "He did what I couldn't. He left because I couldn't make him go. And because if he'd stayed one more day…"

Amy wonders if her mother knows about her father's last words.

_You're the reason._

_I'm leaving because of you._

Amy doubts Farrah knows.

And Amy vows, right then and there, that she'll never find out from her.

"I told Reagan once that you're like him," Farrah says. She sees Amy's head snap up, sees the anger and pain darkening her daughter's eyes. "The man I married, the man in that picture… he was a good and selfless man who far too often put everyone else's needs ahead of his own."

Farrah reaches out, wipes away a tear Amy didn't know she had cried.

"In the end," Farrah says, "I'm not sure if it was that man or the selfish shit he'd become that actually left." She squeezes Amy's hand in hers. "But he made the decision, Amy. He made the choice because somehow we'd  _finally_  crossed the line, the one when loving someone - no matter how true and deep that love is - it just doesn't outweigh the pain and the damage you're doing to each other every day."

Amy knows why she doesn't hate Karma.

She's still holding onto that lifeline. Because it's there. Because it's safe. She knows what she's getting.

And, to be honest, she's never quite learned to stand on her own.

And because no matter how bad it's gotten, no matter how much she's been hurt?

They haven't crossed that line.

Later that night? As Karma's lips crash into hers and Amy can practically  _feel_  Reagan's heart breaking?

Karma will obliterate the line.

And Amy will realize she's more like Jack than she ever knew.

* * *

**_Part II_ **

The night of the party, Amy sees Karma on the stairs after their little impromptu Billy Joel dance party, and she knows immediately.

Karma's hurting.

And this isn't just the 'my best friend kept a secret' or 'my boyfriend's a jackass' hurt she's been going through lately. This is real. This is pain.

This is an open fucking wound. And a wounded Karma is  _never_ a good thing.

Someone needs to talk to her. Someone needs to check on her, talk her down off the ledge.

Shane is the only one Amy can ask.

"You're out of your fucking mind," Shane says. And Amy thinks he might be right.

Asking Shane to check on Karma?

Yeah, that's a little batshit insane.

Shane keeps walking, never slowing down as he navigates the crowd of people cluttering the hall to his parent's bedroom. Someone's managed to spill a half a bottle of wine on his mother's new carpet - and didn't he say the master bedroom was off limits? And who the fuck drinks  _wine_  at a party? - and he's on damage control.

Which is not unlike what Amy is asking him to do.

"Please, Shane?" Amy asks, right on his heels, close to begging and she knows she's not above going there if she has to. "You didn't see her on the stairs," she says. "She looked… wrecked. I thinks she's had too much to drink."

Shane shoves through the bedroom door. "It's a party, Amy," he says. "People drink. And besides, she has Liam to watch out for her."

Yeah, Amy thinks.  _That's_ comforting.

"Shane…" Amy's bordering on whining  _and_  bordering on annoying  _herself_.

"Ask someone else," he says, quickly spotting the stain, right by his mother's side of the bed, the one spot that'll be impossible to miss.

"Who?" Amy asks. "Lauren? Theo? I know… Reagan." She leans up against the bedroom wall, crossing her arms in front of her chest "I'll ask my girlfriend if she can do me a solid and go check on my fake ex-girlfriend and make sure she's OK."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Shane says. He crouches down and runs a finger through the stain. Not quite dry, but it's been there a while "Fuck," he mutters. "Why can't people just  _listen_  to me?"

"You owe me," Amy says. "Lunch yesterday. Outing me to Karma." She says it again. "You  _owe_  me."

He stands and looks at her over his shoulder and she knows she's got him. But he's not going to make it easy. "If you really want to make sure she's OK, why don't you do it yourself?" he asks.

Amy shakes her head. "I can't," she says. "I can't be the one to go to her."

Shane drifts over to the closet and starts rummaging through the shelves. "Not that I'm disagreeing," he says. "But why?"

"Lauren thinks she's doing it on purpose," Amy says. "That Karma's just trying to get my attention and make me chase her, like I always do."

Shane sticks his head back out of the closet and eyes Amy. "For once," he says, "your sister and I might actually agree." He turns back to the closet, finding a couple of towels that will work. "But what do  _you_  think?"

Amy shrugs. "It's not like it wouldn't be a totally Karma-like thing for her to do…"

He kicks the closet door shut and turns to her, a towel in each hand. "But?" He extends a hand, offering her one of the towels.

"But…" Amy says, taking the towel and kneeling down next to the stain with him. "I  _saw_  her, Shane."

He presses his towel against the stain. "And you think she's genuinely fucked up? I mean, more than usual?"

Amy laughs. "Yeah. After coffee with Reagan and then the things I said to her today, and then your toast…"

"Blot," Shane admonishes Amy who's started vigorously rubbing with her towel. "And what was wrong with my toast?"

"'Things didn't work out'? 'Real love'?" Amy dabs at the stain with her towel, watching the wine soak into the cloth. "You may as well have hung a 'Kick Me! I'm a Bitch!' sign on Karma's back."

Shane pauses, cocking his head to the side. "I never even… I mean... " He frowns. "Would you believe me if I said I never even thought of it that way? That it was all supposed to be about you and Reagan and I never once gave Karma a second thought?"

Would Amy believe that?

Yeah. Who  _wouldn't_  believe Shane had never once considered Karma's feelings?

"So, you see," she says. "She's hurt. And I know you think she deserves it, but…  _I'm_  the one asking Shane. Not her.  _Me._ "

He was always going to cave and they both know it. "OK," Shane says softly. "I'll go check on her." He takes Amy's towel from her. "That's enough," he says.

"You don't want to keep trying?"

Shane shakes his head. He knows a lost cause when he sees it. "It's no use," he says. " The damage is done."

* * *

Liam wants to talk to Amy.

He  _needs_  to talk to Amy.

And that, plus the three shots he downs after leaving Karma in Shane's room, just pisses him right the hell off.

He shouldn't have to talk to Amy. He shouldn't have to fucking  _deal_  with her. Not anymore. Amy should be an afterthought. He should only have to deal with her like Karma deals with Shane.

_He's_ the one Karma picked. She said it herself, not five minutes ago. She chose him. She's with him.

If she hadn't wanted him, Karma could have had Amy. She knew how Amy felt about her - the whole fucking school knew - and she knew that even after everything Amy would still take her back.

The most important person in her life (and if Liam had to hear that one more  _fucking_ time, he was going to need a lot more shots) was in love with her and Karma knew it.

And she still picked  _him._

Fuck Amy. And not like he did the night of the wedding.

_Fuck_  her. Fuck her and their history. Fuck her and their ten years and their inside jokes and their perfect 'more than friends but not  _that_  kind of more' bullshit.

Karma picked him. Not her.

Even if it doesn't always feel like it.

Even if it almost never feels like it.

So, yeah, he  _needs_  to talk to Amy. But he's not happy about it.

Liam's not happy about a lot of things.

He's not happy his girlfriend is obsessed with his family. He's not happy that his family is… well… his family. He's not happy that he couldn't have been born to people like the Ashcrofts.

People without a lying, manipulative, power hungry bone in their body.

He's not happy that he's finally found people like that, people that genuinely seem to  _like_ him.

He's finally found people like that and even  _they_ fucking  _love_  Amy.

Mostly, right this moment, Liam's not happy that Karma's not happy. And really, he knows that 'not happy' describes Karma's state of mind like 'a big hole' describes the Grand Canyon.

Karma passed 'not happy' the moment she discovered Reagan existed.

And  _that_? That might be thing that pisses Liam off the most. And he knows that makes him a jealous fool. He knows he's being horribly insensitive to his girlfriend's feelings.

But that's par for the course with him. After all, he's a douche.

Liam knows this about himself. Or, more accurately, he knows that's what people think of him. But they don't know him, right? They don't know the shit he's been through. They don't know what it's like to be a Booker.

And if they did?

Well, Liam's just drunk enough to admit that if they did know him, if they did know what his life was really like?

They'd still think he was a douche.

But maybe they'd see there's good reason for it.

Finding out your sister's your mom? Living with parents -  _grandparents_  - who disapprove of your every life choice? Being popular for all the wrong reasons and having only one real friend in the world, one friend who doesn't have the first fucking clue about any of this?

Yeah, that could make anybody a douche.

And right now, Liam's just drunk enough to admit - at least to himself - that he doesn't  _want_ to be the way he is. He wants to be the model of integrity and honesty he tells everyone he thinks he is.

But he doesn't know how.

Or, he didn't, until he met Karma.

Karma changed everything. You know, once he got past the whole only wanting to bang her because she was a lesbian thing. And the whole not really caring - even though he protested and claimed differently - that she was already in a relationship thing.

And the whole 'being a hypocritical ass and judging her for lying to get his attention when he'd have done the same thing a thousand times over if he'd thought of it first' thing.

So, yeah. Liam's a douche.

But he's a douche in love.

Which is probably - no,  _definitely_  - worse.

Because love doesn't always redeem. It doesn't bring out the best in everyone, it doesn't make you live up to your best nature and be the best man you can be.

Sometimes -  _most_  times - it makes you live down to your lesser nature. It brings out the absolute worst in you.

So, when Liam can't find Amy and settles for Reagan, well….

He's a douche.

What? You were expecting redemption?

"Where's your girlfriend?"

Liam pretends not to notice the look of disgust that creeps over Reagan's face at the sight of him. He pretends not to, but he does notice it. And, he thinks, it's just not fair.

Amy fucked him as much as he fucked her.

So why is he always the bad guy?

"Where's Amy?" Liam repeats, drawing out each word like he's talking to someone who doesn't speak English.

"Bathroom," Reagan says ( _lies_ ). "Roof. Out back. Outer space." Her eyes narrow as she stares at Liam. "Why do you care?"

"I  _need_  to talk to her," he says. And he thinks that'll take care of it. It's one of the perks of being Liam Booker.

People cater to you.

Which is perfect for Reagan, right?

Well, it might be, except she's off the clock. And she thinks Liam's a fucking prick. And, unlike the people who have to deal with him every day, she's got no problem telling him that.

"The last thing Amy needs or wants is to talk to you," she says. "So go find your girlfriend or your mom or your sister or whoever's taking care of your little rich boy ass tonight and stay away from us."

Liam stares at her for a moment, as if he can't quite comprehend that she isn't actually running off to find Amy for him.

And then he laughs.

It starts slow, just a chuckle. And then an actual laugh and then pretty soon Liam's cackling like some sort of bad movie villain and drawing stares, so Reagan grabs him by the arm and drags him to a quiet spot in the kitchen.

"What the  _fuck_  is your problem, Booker?"

"Us," Liam stammers out between laughs. "You said  _us_." He shakes his head and lets the laughter peter out. "You just don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?" Reagan asks.

"There is no 'us'," Liam says. "Not for you and her. Not for me and Karma." The laughter's gone now and Liam rubs at his eyes with one hand. "There's only one 'us' in this equation, Reagan. And that's  _them_."

Reagan doesn't need to ask who 'them' is. That's pretty fucking apparent.

"You're drunk," she says, starting to walk away.

Liam reaches out and grabs her arm, his grip tight around Reagan's elbow. "And you're temporary," Liam snaps. "Just like me."

"I'm nothing like you, Liam," Reagan says. Her voice is low and her eyes are locked on the hand gripping her arm. "And Amy and I are nothing like you and Karma."

"You're  _exactly_ like me," Liam says. His eyes drift to his hand on her elbow and he's surprised, like he doesn't even remember grabbing her. "We're experiments," he says as he lets her go.

"Experiments?"

Liam nods. "Like when little kids try out everything in the world," he says. "Every sport, every game, every toy. They obsesses over it, can't get enough of it. Until they realize it isn't… it isn't the  _perfect_  thing." He leans back against the wall and runs a hand through his hair. "And then they drop it."

Apparently, Liam's just drunk enough to face the truth.

And to think his truth is Reagan's too.

"That's all we are, Reagan," he says. "Both of us. We're just way-stations on the road to Amy and Karma's epic love."

Amy and Shane leave the bedroom at the end of the hall and Reagan sees them coming out, sees Amy spot her from across the room.

_You're temporary._

Reagan's struck by the sudden urge to run.

"You don't know," Liam says. "You don't see it. Everything Amy's done? It's the perfect plan."

Reagan tears her eyes from Amy and looks at Liam. She's never found him attractive - and not just because he's a  _guy_  - but right now he looks so tired and busted and used, she almost feels bad for him. "Plan?" she asks.

Liam nods. "To make Karma realize how she really feels." Liam says. "Amy's done everything exactly the way most guaranteed to drive Karma nuts."

Liam steps away from the wall, so caught up in his little rant that he doesn't even notice Amy appear, fails to see her standing there staring at him.

He starts ticking off the steps for Amy's 'plan' on his fingers.

"Keep you a secret," he says to Reagan. "Karma can't stand not knowing things, especially when those things are Amy-things."

Two months, almost. Two months and if it weren't for Shane…

Reagan shakes her head. She can't - she  _won't_  - think that way.

"Then," Liam says, "make sure Karma sees you two in a way that makes her feel inferior, like she's not hot enough or sexy enough."

The video. The couch.

Liam rolls on. "After that? Pull away. Make Karma feel like her spot in Amy's life is in jeopardy."

You can't be my life anymore.

"And then," Liam says, "to seal the deal? Get everything Karma ever wanted. Popularity. Attention. The love of the idiots."

The party. The ovation. The toast.

Reagan's heart beats a little harder in her chest. If she didn't know better…

But she  _does_  know better. She  _knows_ Amy.

But she  _knew_  Shelby too.

That urge to run comes again, that fear bubbling up deep in her stomach. It's like that night in Amy's driveway before their first date when she was so close to turning the key, to running and never looking back.

"You  _have_  to see it Reagan," Liam says. "I mean, come on. You're  _Reagan_."

She wants to tell Liam to shut the hell up. To go fuck himself.

"That's my name," she says instead.

"Yeah," Liam says, "like Madonna or Bono." He snorts a bitter little laugh. "How can you think you're anything more than a phase when nobody even knows your last name?"

"Hey, Liam?"

They both turn toward the voice, the one Liam hears in his nightmares and the one that calms Reagan even at her worst.

Reagan turns to a smile, the same one she's seen a hundred times, all those times when that nagging little drops of jealousy threaten to overtake her.

Amy knows. Every single time.

Liam turns too. Just in time to see Amy's fist as it crashes into his face, knuckles scraping against teeth, drawing blood - his  _and_ hers.

He hits the floor - for the first, but not the last time this night - to a chorus of laughter and cheers from those 'idiots'. He blinks against the shock, stares up at Amy.

"Fuck you," she says, taking Reagan by the hand. They walk away, but Amy stops after just a few steps, dropping Reagan's hand and walking back, crouching down over Liam.

"Solis," She says. "Reagan's last name is Solis. Her father's name is Martin." She glares at Liam, staring right in his slightly dazed eyes. "Her brother's name is Glenn, her mother's name is Denise, and she is  _not_  a fucking phase."

As she walks away, there's a few more cheers.

And for the first time all night, Amy enjoys them.

* * *

Reagan understands Karma.

She'd never admit it, not even to Amy, but she does understand her, more than she'd like, and in ways that, if there wasn't a certain blonde between them, they might actually be friends.

But there  _is_ that certain blonde and she  _is_ between them and Reagan really doubts she and Karma are ever going to be able to be anything even  _approaching_ friends.

But that doesn't change the facts. And the facts are simple. Reagan understands Karma.

She knows that's part of the reason Karma got under her skin so quickly, so easily. Reagan's used to keeping her cool, to staying calm and in control.

Karma turned her into a territorial lesbian bitch in like three minutes flat.

It's that understanding that makes it easy for Karma to rattle Reagan and it's also the entire reason the older girl hasn't just gone ahead and smacked the redhead yet.

That and because, apparently, Amy's the Mike Tyson of this relationship.

There was a time, before Shelby, when Reagan might have gotten physical, when the badass out and proud motherfucking queen might have gone up one side of Karma and down the other.

There was a time, but that time is long gone.  _That_  Reagan hadn't had her heart broken, hadn't discovered what it was like to hit rock bottom.

Or to have it hit back.

_This_  Reagan remembers all too well what it's like to  _be_ Karma.

She remembers what it was like to spend months wondering what it was about her that wasn't enough, what was it she was missing, what was she not doing or saying or thinking? How could she have been enough to entice Shelby, but not enough to keep her?

Obviously, Reagan thought, there was something wrong with her. There was something about her that just didn't measure up.

She wasn't sexy enough.

She wasn't strong enough.

She wasn't funny enough or cool enough or hot enough or smart enough.

In the end, all the qualifies and adjectives didn't matter.

Reagan just wasn't  _enough_.

That was it, right? That had to be it.

After all, the girl Reagan loved, the girl she'd picked, the one she couldn't imagine a future without?

She'd chosen someone else.

That's what it came down to, really. It wasn't about the sex or the cheating or the months and months of lying. Those were symptoms, not the disease.

The disease, the thing that ate Shelby and Reagan apart from the inside out?

Choice.

Shelby loved her, Reagan truly believes that. Shelby cared enough about her that she just didn't dump her and run back to her ex. She stayed. She might have been giving her body to  _him_ , but she was giving her time, her presence, and at least a little of her heart to Reagan.

Shelby loved her.

Just not enough.

Reagan had thought it before, but she'd had the comparisons a little off.

Shelby was the Karma to Reagan's Amy.

But now, it seemed, like the shoe had switched feet. Because Karma was the one who felt like she wasn't enough. Karma was the one who's chosen love - and let's face it, Amy was  _always_  Karma's choice - had chosen someone else.

Reagan understood that. She understood Karma.

In a way, she even felt bad for her. Reagan knew that pain and she wouldn't wish it on anyone.

She understands.

Or she  _did._ Right up until now.

Reagan spots Karma first, standing behind her. In a lot of ways, Reagan's feels like Karma's been right behind her since the beginning.

"Karma?"

Reagan feels Amy's head lift off her shoulder at the sound of her best friend's name, feels Amy slip free of her embrace at the  _sight_ of her best friend's face.

"Karms?" Amy's voice betrays her worry. This isn't just another fight, another argument.

Reagan steps back, giving them space. And if that step back makes it a little easier for her to run?

Could anyone blame her?

"Karma?" Amy asks again. "You OK?"

"No."

It's just one word, but it's the only one Reagan needs to hear. She knows what's going to happen next even if, judging by the look on her face, Amy hasn't got a clue.

Reagan understands Karma, you see. So she's not surprised as she watches Karma yank Amy into her arms, as she watches Karma run a hand through Amy's hair, hook her other hand behind Amy's neck, slowly guiding the blonde.

She's not surprised as she watches Karma press her lips to Amy's, watches them kiss as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Reagan understands Karma.

But, right now? She's not sure she understands much else.

* * *

Amy should have known.

She should have seen it coming.

Amy's been best friends with Karma for so long, it's almost all she can remember. She  _knows_  Karma.

So, she  _really_  should have seen this coming.

In the truck, in Karma's driveway, Amy had told Reagan 'if'.

_If_  she had to choose.  _If_  it came down to it.  _If_  that was what had to happen.

How had she not seen it?

Amy knows Karma well enough to know.

With her? There's never an 'if'.

And, no matter how it all works out, no matter how good or bad or somewhere in between this all ends up, Amy knows she'll spend the rest of her life wondering.

Did she really not see it? Or did she  _not want to_?

Not that it really mattered.

Because when it ended, well… it  _ended._

And whether she saw it coming or not was really beside the point.

* * *

There are days Amy wishes she'd just stayed in bed.

Today just jumped to the top of that list.

It amazes her how quickly things can change. Three months ago, if this had happened? If Karma had suddenly pulled her into an embrace, pressed Amy tightly against her body and then crashed their lips together with more passion and lust than in every kiss they'd ever shared combined?

Amy might well have thought she died and gone to heaven.

_Two_  months ago, she might have hesitated.

OK, not  _might_. She would have. There'd have been a pause - probably longer than Amy would have imagined was possible - before she let herself enjoy it.

There was still no Reagan two months ago. There  _was_  Liam, but Amy knows she wouldn't have given even the tiniest of fucks about that. And, in the end, she would have caved, she would have given in.

Because two months ago, that was what Amy did when it came to Karma.

But this isn't three months ago. It's not two months ago.

Three months ago, Reagan wouldn't have been right there, watching. Two months ago, Amy's mind wouldn't have been wondering how she ever thought kissing Karma could compare to kissing Reagan.

Two months ago Amy wouldn't have imagined that the thing she'd hoped for and dreamed of for so very long, could cause her this much pain.

* * *

In the end, it all goes to hell remarkably fast.

Karma's spent most of her life watching romantic comedies and listening to character after character talk about those perfect kisses.

You know the kind. The ones that make the Earth move beneath you, drive the breath from your lungs, the ones that set off the Fourth of July behind your eyes.

Kisses that last seconds, but feel like an eternity.

In the three seconds her lips are pressed to Amy's, Karma has one singular moment of clarity about their kiss.

It's not one of  _those_ kisses.

It's awkward. It's uncomfortable. Their lips clash and Amy's fighting it from the second it begins.

But she always fights Karma at first, about  _everything_. That's how they work.

Amy pushing her away, slamming her hands hard into Karma's shoulders and driving her back?

That's  _not_ how they work.

And Amy's hand flinging upward from her side, her palm finding Karma's cheek, a streak of the blood from Amy's knuckles splashing against Karma's face?

That's  _really_  not how they work.

At least not until now.

Karma blinks back tears and stares at Amy, a slow understanding dawning on her face.

"You have no fucking right," Amy says in a tone Karma's never heard, at least not directed at her. "No  _right_."

Karma sees Reagan moving in on her, murder in her eyes. But Amy spots her too and shoots out an arm, blocking her girlfriend's path.

There's nothing blocking Lauren.

And by the time  _that_  ends? Karma wishes it was Reagan that got to her first.

* * *

Lauren is a lot of things. A daughter, a sister, a friend.

She's intersex. She's an unapologetic bitch.

She's also loyal to the end and a woman of her word.

Lauren warned Karma. She told her what would happen if she even  _thought_  about fucking things up for Amy.

And, clearly, kissing Amy in front of Reagan - in front of half the fucking school and their fucking camera phones - well, that counts as a bit more than 'thinking'.

"Ashcroft, what the  _fuck_?"

On another night it might have struck Lauren funny how many times she's said that phrase today.

Karma doesn't even look at her. The redhead's eyes are locked on Amy and on Reagan. She can't stop staring at the way Amy holds Reagan back, an arm around her waist, whispering softly into the older girl's ear.

Fuck. Even their pain and anger is filled with love.

Lauren slides herself into Karma's eye line, getting as close as possible, and jabbing a finger into Karma's chest.

"I warned you, Karma. I  _fucking_ told you."

Karma snaps out of her daze and looks down at the small blonde.

"I'm… I'm sorry?"

If Karma had expected an apology - if that really counted as one - to calm Lauren, she clearly didn't know the girl too well.

"You're  _sorry_?" Lauren's practically screaming. "Sorry? How the  _fuck_  do you think 'sorry' begins to make up for this?"

Karma just stands there with the glazed over look of someone who's had too much to drink, done something that just can't be undone, and has no earthly idea how it all happened.

And Lauren has a moment - just one - when being a woman of her word, when sticking up for her sister and the girls she's come to love like one, almost doesn't seem…

Fair.

And then Liam shows up.

"Why don't you just back the fuck off, Lauren."

There's a plea behind Karma's eyes. Lauren can see it clear as day. Please. Please just let this go. It's bad enough.

Don't take him on. It'll only make it worse.

Please. Please give me this.

But Lauren's not in a giving mood.

"Fuck you, Booker," she snaps, sparing him only a momentary sideways glance. "This is as much your fault as it is hers."

" _My_  fault?" There's an undercurrent of 'how dare you' in Liam's voice. Just a hint of a threat.

"Yes,  _your_  fault, you shit," Lauren replies, either missing Liam's tone or - more likely - just not giving a fuck. "I've sat here and watched you and Karma practically turn hurting my sister into an Olympic sport for most of the last six months. So don't you dare try and act all high and mighty and innocent now."

Liam takes a half step forward but so does Amy. And since he can still taste his own blood on his tongue, Liam freezes.

Karma comes back to the land of the living then. "I didn't… I didn't mean…"

Every time Lauren thinks Karma can't say anything that's more the  _wrong_  thing, she somehow finds a way to do exactly that..

"You didn't mean? You didn't  _mean_?"

Amy reaches out, drops a hand on Lauren's shoulder, trying to reign her in. "Lolo…"

Lauren shrugs her hand off. "You  _never_  mean, Karma. Never." Her hands ball in and out of fists at her side and she blinks away the tears that are threatening. "Meaning would require you to think. Meaning would require you to actually consider what you're doing."

"Lauren, I -"

"Don't," Lauren snaps. "Don't you fucking dare. Don't you give me some half-assed apology or some bullshit excuse." Lauren pulls herself up to her full height and then on her tip-toes, staring right into Karma's eyes, the tears brimming over.

"You know what the worst of it is, Karma?" she asks. "That you just don't see it. You bitch and you cry and you complain about how hard it is for you. How your parents love your brother better and you're not popular. How nobody knows who you are, how you're just so fucking ordinary,"

There's utter silence in the house. A dozen cell phone cameras record it all.

If Karma wanted to be noticed, she's getting her wish.

"I  _am_ ordinary," Karma says, her eyes dropping to the floor, and she's never felt every inch that word more than right now.. She can't look at Lauren, not when all she sees is Amy and her hand and oh, fuck, did she mess up this time. "And I just…"

"You just never  _see_ , Karma." Lauren drops back, still seething, swatting at the tears running down her cheeks.. "You will never see how fucking lucky you are to  _be_  ordinary."

Karma's eyes jump back to Lauren.

"You will never understand, Karma," Lauren says. "You will never understand what it's like to be Amy or Reagan or...  _me_. We're  _not_  ordinary. And maybe here, maybe in this fucked up bizzaro world of Austin and Hester, that's just fine."

Amy lets out a soft whimper behind her and Lauren has to fight to stay focused, has to resist turning and cradling Amy and Reagan to her and just forgetting the rest of the world exists.

"Here, you're the outcast because you're 'ordinary'," Lauren says. "But out there? We're the ones, Karma. We're the ones that are going to be shunned or ridiculed or judged."

Lauren wishes Theo were there with her, not lost somewhere back in the crowd. He'd help her. He'd give her the strength.

But fuck… she shouldn't need him for that. She's Lauren fucking Cooper.

She's got enough strength for all of them. For herself. For Reagan.

For Amy.

"We all want the same things Karma," Lauren says, tears running across her lips. "And if we're lucky, very very lucky, we'll find it. We'll find what you already had."

There's that glazed look again. Lauren's lost Karma completely. "What I had?"

"All you ever wanted was someone to love you, right?" Karma nods, slowly. That wasn't  _all,_  but it was the heart of it. "Someone who loved you totally and unconditionally. The good, the bad, and everything else."

Behind Lauren, Amy buries her face in Reagan's neck. She knows. She fucking  _knows_.

"You  _had_  that, Karma. You  _always_  did."

For just a moment, Karma's haze fades and her eyes blink clear and bright.

She gets it.

"She loved you," Lauren says, her voice watery and breaking. "Amy loved you in a way most of us not-so-ordinary people would kill for." She pauses a moment, lets it sink in. "And what did you do, Karma?"

Liam interjects again. "That's enough, Lauren."

"You  _chose_ , Karma," Lauren says, ignoring him. "You chose to throw her away for  _him_."

"I said that's enough."

"You threw Amy away," Lauren says, fixing her tear-blurred gaze squarely on Liam. "All for a guy who loved you so much that he couldn't even keep it in his pants for more than five minutes after you broke up."

And in the deathly silence that follows, broken only by an angry curse from Liam, Lauren realizes one thing.

That  _was_  enough.

The entire room is stunned by the speed with which Liam acts. One second he's next to Karma and then, before anyone even realizes he's moved, he's in front of Lauren.

She's not surprised by the anger in his voice as he calls her a little bitch. She's not surprised - much - by the harshness of his grip as he grabs her around the shoulders or by the pungent power of the alcohol on his breath.

And Lauren's  _really_  not surprised by the voice she hears in her head. The one that rings out over the broken, crying, 'Oh, my God, what have I done' voice that sounds just like her own.

_Never hide._

_Never again._

"The truth hurts," she spits. "Doesn't it Liam?"

His grip tightens and Lauren knows she should be scared, she should shut up, she should really fucking quit while she's ahead.

_Never hide._

"This what they teach you in douche school, Booker? Manhandling women?"

Liam's grip falters for a moment and then he grins at her. It's sick and angry and twisted and the kind of image that will linger with him for the rest of his time in Austin.

"So your pills finally worked, Lauren?" he says. "Did modern medicine finally turn you into a  _real_  girl? Or are you still the same fucked up science project you've always been?"

He lets her go then, lets her stagger back, lets her see all the looks, all the stares.

Lauren stumbles, tripping on her own feet and falling against something hard and solid. Something that doesn't give, but holds her up, keeps her on her feet.

Theo.

She feels his arms wrapping around her, cradling her to his chest even as she slides to the floor, every bone in her body gone soft and weak and she just can't stand, she just can't breathe.

So when the first punch lands, Lauren doesn't see it.

Neither does Liam.

He never sees Amy take three running steps toward him, never sees her arm drawing back even as she moves.

He never sees her fist slam into the side of his face.

He  _hears_  it. The slapping of flesh against flesh, the crunch as something beneath his skin gives out. But he never sees the punch that staggers him.

But he does see the other one. The one that drills him straight between the eyes and drops him cold.

And as Amy and Reagan stand over him, hand in bloody hand, Liam's world goes dark.

By the time he wakes up, his world will be even darker.

* * *

Amy and Karma.

Karma and Amy.

Liam thinks they're inevitable.

Five minutes ago, Karma might have agreed with him.

But, as they've all discovered, five minutes is a  _very_  long time.

"Amy… I…"

Amy holds up a hand - the bloody and bruised one - to silence her.

"How could you?" she asks, finally. "How could you do… this?"

Amy waves her hand between them. She means the kiss.

But, really, ' _this'_  could, and probably does, mean so much more.

"No right," Amy says, not even waiting for an answer. "You've got no fucking right."

"Amy…"

"No," Amy says, repeating that one word back to Karma. "I don't want to hear it Karma. This… this was too fucking far."

"I  _had_ to," Karma says. "You didn't leave me a choice."

"I didn't…" Amy squeezes her eyes shut. She can feel Reagan behind her, watching. And maybe that's the only thing that keeps her going, the only thing that keeps Amy from just curling up into a ball right then and there and just wishing it all away.

Reagan has to see. Reagan has to  _know_.

"There's always a choice, Karma," Amy says. She glances down at Liam, lying there on the floor - and no one is even moving to help him - and feels the pain radiating throughout her hand. "There's always a choice. And you made your choice clear, over and over again."

"And you made your choice just as clear," Karma replies. "And it was  _always_  me. Until her," she tips her head toward Reagan. "And maybe that was what it took, maybe that was what I needed to realize… that I chose wrong."

Karma takes a step toward Amy and visibly winces when Amy takes two large steps back, right to Reagan.

"I had to do  _something_ ," Karma says. She knows she's making it worse, but she can't bring herself to stop, not now.

There's been too much damage already. She has to finish this.

It has to mean something. It  _has_  to.

"I had to do  _something_ ," Karma repeats. "And maybe kissing you wasn't exactly the  _best_  plan, but I couldn't just  _tell_ you.."

A sharp stabbing jolt of realization hits Amy and almost doubles her over.

And just when she thought this couldn't get any worse.

"Karma, don't."

"I  _have_  to," Karma says. "You understand, you've been there."

_Make the decision._

"Karma, please. Stop. Just fucking stop."

But Karma  _can't_ stop, she can't ever stop, not when it comes to Amy.

She just has to pick that scab.

"You know," Karma says. "You know what it's like trying to hold it in."

_No matter how true and deep that love is._

"I couldn't go one more minute. Not without showing you. Now without telling you."

_It just doesn't outweigh the pain and the damage._

Amy realizes, in that moment, that nothing she does, nothing she says, can stop Karma.

"I can't let us waste another minute, Amy."

Nothing she does can stop her.

Nothing she says.

_Almost_ nothing.

Karma's going to drop the bomb and she'll never let it go. Karma doesn't do 'letting go'. Not when it comes to Amy.

And in that moment, it all slows down for Amy. It's like a slow camera pan around the room.

Shane, staring at them from the stairs, anger, sadness, and worry shining in his eyes.

Lauren. Broken. Sobbing. Her secret shattered because she stood for Amy.

Reagan.

Fuck. Amy can't even begin to think of what's running through  _her_  mind, can't even imagine how Liam's words are singing a siren's song inside her, how she must just be waiting, anticipating that final blow.

Those words. From Karma.

And in that moment, Amy makes the decision.

She can't let Reagan hear it. She can't let Karma say it.

The line's been crossed and the damage outweighs everything.

Amy can't let Karma drop  _that_ bomb.

So Amy does the only thing she can.

She drops her bomb first.

"I slept with Liam."


	20. Chapter 20

_**A/N: I feel like the first line of this chapter may come back to haunt me. Sorry for the delay - some stuff happened. And I swear when I sat down to write this, I didn't intend... well... you'll see. Just remember two things - who's my OTP and that, if you're really concerned, go read Chapter 15 (the one with fetus Karma and Amy) again. Or you could just trust me...** _

_**Yeah... I don't know if I would either.** _

_**Reviews, complaints, hate mail, horse's heads in my bed all welcomed here and/or on tumblr...** _

 

 

The backlash is stunning and swift and hits even faster than Shane expected.

And it starts with the same four words that utterly destroy Karma.

_I slept with Liam_.

From the moment Liam told him, Shane has known the truth would find a way to come out. It always does.

It's a rule of the universe - at the very least, the part of the universe that exists in high schools.

It's the law of averages. It's Murphy's Law.

It's karma.

Pun entirely intended.

Still, even Shane has to admit that knowing it would come out, is quite a bit different than actually  _hearing_  it and actually  _seeing_ it happen right here in his own living room.

On a purely selfish level - and Shane knows that's the level he operates on ninety percent of the time - having that bomb detonate tonight will unquestionably make this his most talked about party ever.

On some level - on that one he only works on some of the time - Shane realizes that's going to be cold comfort to the casualties.

He likes a little drama, that's one of the things he and Karma share - maybe the only thing besides a love for Liam and Amy - and Shane can admit how much he needs that rush every once in a while, a little something different, a little something beyond the boring usual.

But this is too much. Even for him.

This isn't drama. It's carnage.

He's always suspected -  _expected_  - that when the truth ripped its way to the surface, it would be at the worst possible time. At the moment when it would do the most possible damage to most possible people.

He was right. Usually he revels in that.

This isn't usually.

Usually doesn't involve his best friend knocked out on his floor.

Usually doesn't involve Lauren - the absolute toughest bitch (and he means that as a term of respect) he's ever met - as a broken, shattered mess that Theo can barely keep upright.

Usually doesn't involve Reagan fuming and looking like she wants someone - someone  _else_  - to hit or Amy standing there shell-shocked by her own actions.

A part of him - a  _small_  part, because even Shane isn't that big of a dick - wants to laugh though, wants to just break down and die giggling at the simple fact that most of this, most of the blood that's been spilled tonight - metaphorically and literally - was done  _before_  the bomb.

_I slept with Liam._

_That_ , Shane thinks, was overkill. Stabbing the body after it's been shot in the head. Staking the vampire with a wooden cross.

Dropping napalm into a mushroom cloud.

By the time Amy finished the job Karma had started herself - kissing Amy? in front of Reagan? was she fucking nuts? - there wasn't much left that could be damaged, not much left standing to be destroyed.

Except their friendship.

And, Shane is quickly realizing, Amy's status as the victim. Her place in the Hester hierarchy as the girl Booker and Ashcroft screwed over.

He can hear it in the murmurs of the crowd.

_She slept with him._

_He slept with her._

_Her best friend's boyfriend?_

_His girlfriend's best friend?_

_You just don't do that shit._

_What a bitch._

_What an asshole._

_Poor Karma._

It'll be amazing, Shane thinks, if somehow the Hester tumblr isn't lit up tonight by posts tagged #poorKarma.

Or #fuckAmy.

Either way, really.

Shane steps off the last stair into the living room, into the midst of the crowd. He notices that not a one them has moved to help Liam or Karma or even Lauren. Most of them haven't really moved at all.

They're too busy staring. Right at Amy.

And Shane knows that look. It's the look they gave Liam after Lauren mounted his car with a bullhorn. The look they gave Karma after her confession.

The look they gave Liam  _and_ Karma the first time they kissed in public.

It's simple math, Shane realizes. Amy's lie subtracts Karma's guilt. Because, in the eyes of the mob, Amy didn't just lie to Karma. She lied to them.

And, if recent history is to be believed, a Hester crowd hates a liar.

It reminds him - absurdly enough - of that God awful  _Batman_  movie Liam made him sit through.

Amy has lasted long enough to see herself become the villain.

It took four words, he thinks.

_I slept with Liam._

Four words. Those four words took everything from Amy. Everything she never wanted in the first place.

And the one thing - the one  _person_  - she did.

Four words. Those four words gave Karma everything she was after from the beginning.

Popularity. Notoriety. Fame.

She'll be the cause celebre at Hester for weeks, longer if she plays it right.

And all it cost her?

The one person she finally realized was the  _only_  one that mattered.

#poorKarma indeed.

* * *

The groundswell of anger and resentment and way, way too much alcohol - thanks for  _that_ , Shane - ripples through the crowd and Reagan sees one of them step forward toward Amy.

She's a lanky little thing, maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. Her friend - Reagan recognizes her as Lauren's minion Lizbeth - tries to grab her hand, tries to pull her back to the masses. But the lanky one - what the  _fuck_  was her name? - shrugs it off and keeps moving.

Right at Amy.

And Amy doesn't so much as flinch.

Because all Amy sees is Karma.

They haven't been able to tear their eyes away from each other since Amy said it. And don't think for one second that Reagan hasn't noticed. Don't think she's once let her gaze drift from the redhead that just  _kissed_  Amy.

Until the lanky one started moving. And Amy didn't.

The lanky one - Leila,  _that's_  her name - reaches Amy and Reagan takes the two short steps to join her girlfriend.

"Is it true?" Leila asks. "Did you… did you sleep with  _him_?" She tips her head in Liam's general direction and the tone of her voice tells Reagan all she needs to know.

It isn't that Amy slept with a boy. That  _might_  be OK.

It's the boy she slept with.

And that  _isn't_ OK.

Amy doesn't answer. Amy doesn't look at lanky little Leila. Amy doesn't look away from Karma.

And that, apparently, is all the answer Leila - or any of  _them_  - need.

Because that's when Leila's hand comes snapping up from her side - and haven't we already played this scene tonight, Reagan thinks - her tiny little palm aiming right for Amy's cheek.

Too bad it never gets there.

Reagan catches Leila's wrist before the slap can connect. She squeezes, harder than she probably needs to, but tough fucking shit lanky Leila.

Wrong place. Wrong fucking time.

Leila turns and glares at Reagan and the older girl immediately recognizes the courage that only a few too many cups of spiked fruit punch can bring, dancing in the other girl's eyes.

"You're drunk," Reagan says. She's trying to keep it friendly - as friendly as a threat can be - and not come across like a bully. "You're drunk and hurting over some perceived betrayal. And I know you were all invested in 'Karmy' and this has to hurt."

"Fuck you, homewrecker."

Reagan almost laughs. Almost. Because, let's face it, it's almost funny.

Amy and Karma wrecked their own home. And the wrecking ball was swinging long before Reagan showed up.

"As I was saying," Reagan continues, squeezing just a little tighter, "You're drunk and hurting and people do stupid things when they're drunk and hurting." And yeah, that last bit is aimed totally at Karma, but Reagan's pretty sure she doesn't hear it. "And so,I'm going to pretend this," she tugs on Leila's arm for emphasis, "never happened."

She drops the younger girl's hand and stares her in they eyes, but every single one of  _them_  knows her words are for them all.

"I'm letting this one go," Reagan says. "But if you so much as look at Amy funny, if you so much as breathe in her direction? I will fuck. Your. Shit. Up."

Leila holds her ground for a moment, and that's a moment longer than Reagan would have expected, and  _that_  tells her all she needs to know about how unhealthily invested in Amy and Karma this lanky little Leila is.

They all are.

And even after a few drinks and with the anger of an entire day dealing with Karma ripping through her  _and_ the sight of Karma kissing Amy still burned into her brain, Reagan's smart enough to know that maybe it's time they got the fuck out of Dodge.

She turns to Amy, reaching for her arm, perfectly willing to drag her out of there if necessary.

And then it happens.

More accurately,  _she_ happens.

"Don't you  _fucking_  touch her."

Reagan waits a beat, just one, just because she knew this was coming and she'd prayed all night - hell, since Karma had bailed on her at the coffee shop - that she wouldn't have to do this.

So she waits. Just for a second. Because she knows that when she turns, when she looks at the source of that voice, when she finds Karma finally staring somewhere other than at Amy?

She knows it won't end well.

And what she's going to do? She can't ever take back.

* * *

"Don't you  _fucking_  touch her."

Shane almost jumps out of his skin at the sound of Karma's voice. He'd been so focused on the little stare down between Leila - and since when did  _she_  come to his parties? - and Reagan, he'd practically forgotten Karma was even there.

That seems to be happening to her a lot, lately.

#poorKarma

He watches, more than a little afraid, as Reagan turns to face her. Shane loves Reagan. He can easily see her someday becoming just as important to him as Liam or Amy or - not that he would ever admit it - Lauren.

But just because he loves her, doesn't mean he's not afraid of her.

Shane's gay and a little - OK, a lot - selfish and very bossy.

He's  _not_  stupid.

And, judging by the vibe that's practically radiating it's way off Reagan right now?

Fear is a very valid emotion.

Something in him makes Shane move. Makes him take a few more steps into the room. He's been on the fringes since this all started. And now he's in the thick of it.

He should ignore the impending brawl.

He should check on Liam, his best friend.

He should hustle Amy and Reagan and Lauren and Theo the hell out of there.

He should absolutely  _not_  step between Karma and Reagan.

So, of course, that's exactly what he does.

What was that about not being stupid?

* * *

"Get out of the way, Shane."

Reagan can't tell who says it first - her or Karma. Not that it matters. Shane's apparently not moving, at least that's what she thinks the arms crossed in front of his chest and resolute glare are saying.

Shane's doing his best to look fierce and not in the 'Girl, you look  _fierce_ ' way.

It doesn't really work for him.

"Shane, move." This time it's clearly Karma as she grabs Shane by the shoulder and tries to steer him out of her way. "This is between me and …  _her_."

The last time Reagan heard someone talk about her like that?

_Come on back to bed, Shelby. Get rid of the dyke,will ya? Forget…_  her.

That night, she ran. That night, she let that little fuckwit drive her away without so much as a word in return.

Yeah, that's not happening  _tonight_.

"Get out of the way, Shane," Reagan says. "Let the little bitch say whatever she's got to say."

Maybe 'bitch' was a bit harsh. Because a soft rumble makes its way through the crowd and Reagan is once again confronted by the fact that Amy - and so, by association,  _her_  - are not the favorites here.

If shit goes down, that could make it messy.

Well then, she'll just have to make it quick.

"I said move, Harvey." Reagan takes a step forward, fists clenched at her side. It's been a long while since she's been in a fight, but she's betting it's not nearly as long as it's been for Karma.

Reagan knocked a man cold tonight.

Karma pushed Stacey Wheeler off the swings when she was seven.

Not quite the same thing.

"Reagan, Karma, " Shane raises a hand to both of them and, for just a second, Reagan thinks he's about to tell them they're both pretty and then - her love for Shane be damned - he's going to be the one she punches first.

"This isn't happening, OK?" It sounds like a question, but no one actually believes Shane's asking. "I think we've had enough fists-a-flying for one night, don't you?"

Almost as one, all the eyes in the room turn to Liam then back to Shane and the two girls.

No one takes a step toward helping Booker.

"She kissed my girlfriend, Shane," Reagan says. "Where I come from, that's not something that goes unanswered."

"This isn't where you come from."

And, just like that, Amy's back to the land of the living.

And just when Reagan didn't think this could get any worse.

* * *

Shane spent weeks trying to get Amy to talk. Weeks trying to get her to open her mouth and just  _tell_  Karma what she was feeling.

Even now, he wonders how much of all…  _this_ … could have been avoided if she'd just said something.

So, he figures, it only stands to reason that  _now_  is when she finally decides to speak up.

"This isn't where you come from."

Well, just fuck all, Shane thinks. Seriously? She just stands there, silent as the Mona Lisa while the shit is going  _down_  and when she finally does say something?

She goes after  _Reagan_?

And just when  _he_ thought this couldn't get any worse.

Shane watches -  _everyone_  watches - as Reagan turns to face her girlfriend, just a bit of the anger leaking out of her, but those fists are still clenched.

"What?"

Shane's not sure if Reagan's asking because she didn't hear or she didn't understand - and that's bullshit because the room was fucking silent so she damn well  _heard_  it - but he supposes it doesn't really matter.

Amy's going to repeat it either way.

"This isn't where you come from," Amy says,  _again_. "So, right now, just walk away."

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane sees the smirk start to spread across Karma's face, and he offers up a silent prayer that Reagan doesn't turn and see it.

So, of course, she  _does_.

And that anger that leaked out? Yeah, let's just go ahead and pump that shit right back in.

"Shrimps…" There's a warning rippling under Reagan's voice. And Shane doesn't know if it's for Amy or Karma or both.

He'd bet on both.

"I said walk away, Reagan." Amy's tone carries that same warning and Shane - and the whole fucking room - knows who  _that's_ for. "Walk away. Take Theo. Get Lauren out to the truck. Just  _go_."

Shane can only watch as the Amy's words let all the air out of her girlfriend. Reagan's shoulders slump, her head hangs, her fists unclench.

He turns then, quickly, intent on making sure Karma - and however the fuck many drinks she had - doesn't say or do anything -

Too late.

"You heard her, Reagan. Go. Leave  _us_."

Shane squeezes his eyes shut, like if he can't see what's going on, it won't actually be happening.

Like that  _ever_  works.

He waits for what he knows is coming. Amy to step up. Amy to tell Karma to shut the fuck up. Amy to remind everyone that yes, she's trying to avoid a scene and more shit tonight, but Reagan is still her girlfriend. Reagan is still her choice.

He waits.

And he waits.

And waits… and waits…

And he squeezes his eyes shut again.

Nope. Still doesn't work.

* * *

"You heard her, Reagan. Go. Leave  _us_."

It's the 'us' that does Reagan in. It's the implication, the suggestion, the simple audacity of it.

Ten minutes ago, Amy slapped Karma across the face.  _Five_  minutes ago, Amy told Karma she slept with Liam.

And Karma's still so fucking confident, still believes so strongly, is still so fucking convinced that  _she_  and Amy are an 'us'.

_There is no 'us'. Not for you and her. Not for me and Karma. There's only one 'us' in this equation, Reagan._

_And that's_ them.

So, yeah, maybe it's understandable that the 'us' is what does it. That it's the 'us' that's finally one straw too many, one too many logs on the fire, one too many buttons pushed.

It might be understandable. But even as she lunges at Karma, plowing right through Shane, Reagan's not sure if it's forgivable.

Amy…  _her_  Amy? She'd understand. She'd forgive.

But as she reaches Karma, Reagan feels a pair of arms wrapping around her waist, feels herself being pulled back before she can even land a hair pull or a scratch, much less a knockout punch, feels herself being spun back and finds herself face to face with Amy, looking  _way_  more pissed than Reagan's ever seen her?

And now?

Reagan's pretty sure  _her_  Amy's left the building.

* * *

Oddly enough, given how he feels about all of them, it was - up until a moment ago - Karma who Shane was worried about the most. She, he knew, was the one who was the worst off, the one who was most alone.

Liam, he knows from experience, has a hard fucking head and probably passed out just as much as he got knocked out.

Lauren has Amy. And Reagan. And Theo. So, as broken as she is right now, she's got the support.

Amy and Reagan have each other.

Or they  _did_.

"What the  _fuck_ , Reagan?"

Shane's never seen Amy get physical with anyone, not until tonight, not until she punched Liam. Twice. And yeah, even he had to admit Liam had it coming (and not  _just_  for tonight).

But Reagan?

Whatever fantasies Shane's had about watching some 'lesbian action'? This is so  _not_  what he meant.

Reagan, to her credit, doesn't flinch or back down even an inch in the face of her clearly pissed off girlfriend. Shane has to admire that.

Even if he knows it's probably relationship suicide.

He'd hoped it was really different. He'd let Amy convince him it was. He'd let her tell him time and again that she was over Karma, that Karma was the past, that Reagan was the future.

For Amy's own sake, for her own sanity, Shane had wanted her to be telling the truth. So he let himself believe she was.

Silly, silly boy.

"She said 'us'," Reagan says. "Us, Amy. As in you and her. Not you and me. You. Her. Us."

Shane can't help it. He's rooting in his mind. Tell her, he thinks. Tell her that Karma's just drunk and stupid and the only 'us' is Reamy.

He's shipping. He's shipping hard.

And any shipper can tell you…

The harder you ship? The harder your fall.

"Reagan…"

Shane winces, he  _physically_ winces. It's the 'trail off'. It's the move you make when you have to say something, but you can't say what the other person wants to hear.

It's the coward's way out. Shane would know. He's used it a few dozen times.

And, he can tell, from the look on her face, that Reagan knows it too. She's probably heard it before. Maybe that bitch that dumped her for the  _boy_. Maybe Reagan made the cardinal mistake of any break-up, maybe she asked 'did you ever really love me?'

_Reagan…_

Shane let himself believe. Maybe Amy did too, maybe she let  _herself_  believe. Maybe it was the only way she could get up in the morning. Maybe it was the only way she could face seeing Karma and Liam together every day.

Maybe it was never  _Karma_  who was self-deluding.

Shane believed. Reagan believed. Lauren believed. Amy believed.

Liam and Karma never did.

Fuck me, Shane thinks. Since when are those two  _ever_ right?

* * *

Reagan doesn't wait. She doesn't need to. She knows. She heard it. The trail off.

She knows what it means.

When Amy had dropped the bomb, so clearly to keep Karma from saying 'I love you', Reagan had felt a momentary rush.

It wasn't pride, not really. It was… relief. Because, clearly, in that moment, Amy had stayed true to everything she'd promised.

Reagan was her choice.  _They_  were her choice. She wasn't giving up on the possibility of their future.

But actions speak louder than words. And the trail off speaks louder than either of them.

Once upon a time, Reagan swore she would never walk away again, not without a fight, not without a word.

Once upon a time, she'd imagined she'd never find herself in this place again.

She can't look at Amy. She can't… she just  _fucking_  can't. Not with Karma lurking in the background.

Right where she's always been

But Amy isn't the only one Reagan cares about. So, Reagan does the same exact thing her… can she even use the word 'girlfriend' any more?... girlfriend is so obviously doing.

She stands by her best friend.

"Theo," she says, turning to the boy. "Can you carry her?"

Theo looks between them, from Reagan to Amy and then back again. And he nods. He knows where his loyalties lie.

With the girl sobbing in his arms.

"Get her to the truck," Reagan says. "I'll drive you home."

Theo nods again and stands, lifting Lauren with ease, cradling her like a newborn against his chest. The crowd parts before him as he heads for the door.

Reagan does manage one last look at Amy, one last glance. But Amy's eyes are on the floor.

And if Reagan didn't know before?

She does now.

And so she turns and follows Theo's path, the crowd parting for her too.

And if she walks just a little slower? If she takes just a little longer?

If she pauses near the door, waiting for the footsteps that never come?

If she waits for the sound of her name being called that she never hears?

Who could blame her?

She believed.

They all did.


	21. Chapter 21

_**A/N: Reamy. Endgame. Trust me.** _

History, Amy knows, is a bitch.

It's history that fucks everything up. History that roots us in place when we should run, history that trains us to expect things and, in turn, accept them.

Amy knows. It's history that ruins us.

History binds. History ties us together. History cinches us to other people, holding us in its embrace.

It's an embrace, Amy has come to realize, that suffocates. That strangles and lynches and traps.

History lets us love. History lets us know.

History gives us the weapons. History loads the gun. It sharpens the knife.

And it tells us exactly where to cut. Where  _exactly_  to drive the blade in, how to twist it, how to draw blood - oh so much fucking blood.

 _I slept with Liam_.

Yeah. Amy knows.

History kills.

* * *

Two weeks before Shane's party, Amy realizes just how much she hates history.

Two weeks before she ends Karma's world, it's history  _class_.

It's not so much history itself that Amy hates - not  _yet_ , at least - or even the study of it. Sure, she can't understand, for the life of her, why she needs to know anything about Mesopotamia. Or the Aztecs. Or anything about the colonies or tea parties or, basically, anything from before her mother or her grandmother were even born.

But, as she always does, Amy will go with it. She'll do what's asked. She'll study it. She'll learn it. She'll memorize the names of people long since dead and the locations of places long since buried under dirt and rock and forgotten everywhere but in the pages of her textbook.

But she will  _hate_  it.

Amy won't quite realize it yet. It'll just be a feeling, an itch in the back of her mind, like her feelings for Karma were, until that kiss in the gym woke them and brought them roaring to life and let them take over her mind, her heart.

Her life.

Amy won't realize how much she hates history just now. She won't realize how it ties her down. She won't connect it with the way she can't stop remembering the one thing she wants to forget so fucking badly.

She won't realize all of that just yet - not for another two weeks or so - but she will know that history sucks. Amy will see how history defines her day, how the past - not the ancient lost and buried shit they study, but the fresh, aching, bloody mess that won't ever be written about - still rules everything she does.

Because in Amy's world?

History has a name.

Liam Booker.

Liam  _fucking_  Booker, she thinks, though she doubts that's how it appears on his birth certificate.

But then, with the Bookers, you can never be sure.

History is her last class before lunch. And that alone makes it bad enough. Sixty minutes that move with the speed of a fucking glacier. Sixty minutes between her and the pair of Planter's doughnuts Reagan brought her this morning.

Amy would hate  _anything_  that stood between her and lunch.

If only that were the only reason...

But, of course, it's  _not_.

History is the only class Amy has that she doesn't share with Karma, Shane, or Lauren - and she's still getting used to the Lauren part being a  _good_ thing - and she almost always has to sit by Lauren's 'friend' Lizbeth, and that almost always means an hour of shy smiles and winks and a seemingly endless supply of 'I'm sorry for your loss' and 'My condolences' notes.

Apparently, Lizbeth is taking the Karmy break-up somewhat harder than Amy is.

And then - and isn't there always an 'and then'? - there's the  _other_  thing.

This is the only class Amy shares with  _him_.

Liam.

Liam fucking Booker.

And if that  _isn't_  his legal name, Amy decides, it definitely should be.

Amy's never quite sure what her relationship with Liam is or what it's supposed to be. She's never sure if she should acknowledge him. Or talk to him. Or try to be his friend.

Or just kick him in the nuts and move on.

Most days, she leans toward the latter.

She still hates him, she can admit that, at least to herself. She hates him for the casual disregard he showed for her when she and Karma were - as far as he knew - a couple.

And yes, Amy can acknowledge the inherent unfairness of that. It wasn't entirely his fault. Karma told him they had an open relationship. Amy herself went along with the threesome.

It's not fair to blame it all on Liam.

But it is  _easier_.

At least it was until  _that_  day. The day when she'd seen his house and met his family and learned his twisted little secret - the one that made her hidden feelings for Karma seem insignificant in comparison.

And fuck all, but that had messed everything up. If kissing Karma for the first time had spun Amy's world off its axis, finding out the truth about Liam had snapped the fucking axis right off.

Liam was  _supposed_ to be Liam fucking Booker. He was supposed to be Hester's Hugh Hefner. He was supposed to be a fucking dick who sexualized lesbians for his own perverted pleasure and was about as deep as Amy's bathroom sink.

And then there was the momster. And Grand _dad_. And Liam trying, so  _obviously_  trying, to be everything the rest of his family wasn't.

After that day, Amy couldn't hate him.

And, ironically, that made her  _want_  to hate him even more.

It reminded Amy of how she'd felt after she found out Lauren was intersex, of how much harder it had been to see her step-sister as the two-dimensional mean girl she'd always been.

Lauren had become human and Amy was slowly realizing that her sister had, in fact,  _been_  human all along.

That?

That's somewhere Amy isn't quite ready to go with Liam just yet.

He's still a massive fucking douche. He's still, in so many ways, a misogynistic bastard who had no real appreciation of women or even the first fucking clue how to treat them.

He still can't say 'girlfriend'.

Liam is  _all_  of that. But he's all of that with… extenuating circumstances.

He'd been lied to. He'd been betrayed by the people he was supposed to trust without reservation, the ones who were supposed to protect and shelter him.

Liam's family had abandoned him as surely as Amy's father had abandoned her.

 _And_  he's Karma's boyfriend.

Amy wants desperately to hate him. She wants, more than anything, to let him remain the bad guy. She wants every bit of blame for everything that went down - between her and Karma  _and_ between her and Liam - to land squarely at his feet.

But it doesn't work that way.

And she knows it.

And Amy knows that - no matter how much she wishes differently - it  _can't_  work that way. Because he  _is_ dating Karma. And that  _does_  make him a part of Amy's life.

Cutting Liam off, hating him, kicking him in the nuts - basically doing anything  _but_  tolerating him - would throw yet another wrench into Amy's friendship with Karma.

And as much as they've recovered, as close as things are to being normal again - or some new kind of normal - Amy's not sure how many more wrenches their friendship can survive.

So, when her phone buzzes halfway through class? When she looks down and sees the message ID reads 'Hottie Doucheface' (she has to tolerate him, not  _like_ him), Amy doesn't just automatically delete it.

But she doesn't open it either.

Until it buzzes again. And again. And again. And again - and for fuck's sake what the hell is so fucking important that -

She opens it. And sees the picture.

And remembers why she hates history so very fucking much.

* * *

She didn't have a choice.

No matter how things work out between her and Karma and Reagan in the future, no matter how good they may get, no matter how close they may all end up, Amy will never forget this moment.

 _I slept with Liam_.

She will never forget the look on Karma's face. The way her best friend's eyes dim. The way her face crumbles - no, that's too  _gentle_  - the way it fucking shatters right before her.

Amy can see it. She can see it all over Karma's face, see it stumbling and staggering behind her eyes.

Denial.

It's not the first time - not even the first time  _today_  - Amy's seen it. It was all over Karma's face this afternoon in her kitchen.

She had hurt Amy.

Deny.

She had chosen Liam.

Deny.

Reagan wasn't taking Amy away from her.

Deny. Deny. Deny.

Karma is the queen of denial. She's the queen of finding an alternative, of finding something that will work - even for a moment - to keep the real issue, the real pain at bay.

Amy's always been convinced that the threesome was Karma's ultimate in denial. You're going to lose the boy you want because of the very thing that attracted him to you in the first place?

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. It's a fucking three-way in a cheap motel room.

Karma's always believed in the power of denial, if only as a way to postpone what seems to be inevitable. Postponing, in Karma's world, is a good thing.

Postponing means time. Time means a plan. A plan means…

Well, a plan usually means some other horror to postpone, but Karma always just figures she'll think of that later.

Later is here. Later is  _now_.

And now, in her worst moment, Karma's clinging to that last little bit of denial, desperately holding to whatever frayed bit of rope she's got left, whatever 'it can't be true' excuses her brain can come up with.

It wasn't Amy. It was all Liam.

Liam forced her.

He took advantage of her.

She was drunk. She was passed out.

They were both drunk. Liam thought Amy was Karma.

Amy thought Liam was… well… there's no logical end to that one.

But desperate Karma and logical thought don't always go together.

Amy can see it all, right there in front of her. And she knows.

She knows she's going to have to finish the job. Amy knows she's already plunged the knife into Karma's chest, but she also knows she missed the target.

The heart.

And now, Amy knows, she's going to have to finish it. She's going to have to twist the knife.

She has to - metaphorically - kill Karma.

And she doesn't have a choice.

Amy can only watch as Karma wrestles with it. There's nothing else Amy can do, no matter what she  _wants_.

She wants to run to Karma. She wants to take her friend in her arms and tell her it meant nothing, that it was one horrible fucking night that she would do anything to erase.

But Amy knows better. You can't change the past.

You can't undo history.

Amy feels Reagan behind her and a rush of love almost drowns her. She doesn't know how her girlfriend is doing it, how she's stood by through this whole thing and not cracked.

An image flickers through Amy's mind.

Shelby.

Shelby pulling Reagan into her arms. Shelby resting one hand behind Reagan's head, pulling her forward. Shelby pressing her lips to Reagan's, right in front of Amy.

It would never happen.

But that doesn't stop the anger and jealousy and fucking murderous rage from nearly swallowing Amy whole.

If only imagining  _that_  makes Amy feel like  _this_ , she can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for Reagan to have to actually  _see_  it.

Her girlfriend, the woman she loves - the woman who has saved her in so many little and not-so-little ways - is dying right beside her.

And that's why Amy knows she doesn't have a choice.

She said it wasn't about that, she told  _Karma_  it wasn't about that, but Amy knows - she's  _always_  known - that of course it's about  _that_.

It's Karma. Or it's Reagan.

It's Amy's choice.

But in her heart? She knows.

There is  _no_  choice.

* * *

_Hottie Doucheface: So, I saw something interesting on Facebook._

_Hottie Doucheface: I thought it was something we should talk about._

_Hottie Doucheface: You should probably stop ignoring me, Amy. This is important_

_Hottie Doucheface: It was on Shane's page. Here, let me show you._

_Hottie Doucheface: IMAGE ATTACHED_

Fuck Shane.

That's the only thing Amy can think.

Fuck him and his stupid selfie addiction. And his stupid desire to show off in his costume - and who the fuck else would think dressing up like a Catholic school- _boy_  was hot? - and fuck Shane his obsession with social media.

It's all fun and games, Amy thinks, until Liam fucking Booker gets his hands on it.

She stares down at her phone, hoping that glaring at the image long enough will make it disappear somehow. That, maybe, if she focuses hard enough, she can somehow erase the picture of Shane at Reagan's company party - the one Amy blew off Liam and Karma for - from the Internet.

Of course, that doesn't work.

But it does make it easier for her to see the  _real_  reason Liam sent her the picture.

 _She's_  in it.

In the background, half turned away from the camera, but it's still so very fucking clearly her.

Fuck Shane. Fuck him.

Her phone buzzes again.

_Hottie Doucheface: I asked Shane to come to a party that night. The same one Karma asked you to come to._

Maybe if she just ignores him, Amy thinks, maybe he'll just go away. Maybe she's wrong and he hasn't seen her in the picture.

_Hottie Doucheface: I guess now I know what you were both up to that night._

Amy groans and Lizbeth shoots her a concerned look.

Why, Amy thinks, can't I ever be wrong?

Oh. Wait. She was.  _That_  night.

And that little bit of history is why she's in this fucking mess to begin with.

_Hottie Doucheface: What I don't know is why. Why would Shane lie to me? He told me he had to help his mom with work shit._

Her phone vibrates in her hand again, almost before she even finishes reading the message.

_Hottie Doucheface: And why would you lie to Karma?_

_Hottie Doucheface: I thought you two didn't do that?_

Amy's fingers tap out a reply before she can stop herself.

_Amy: Lucky for you, that's not entirely true._

She taps her phone screen, blanking the image and stares up at the board. Their teacher is droning on and, for once, Amy's glad he's one of those God-awful teachers who expects no interaction or  _reaction_  from the students.

_Hottie Doucheface: Lucky for me? You seem to think telling Karma the truth wouldn't hurt you too._

It takes everything Amy has to not turn around and throw her phone at him. She knows it would hurt her too. She knows exactly what Karma finding out about her night with Liam would do.

_Amy: Read the fucking board, Booker._

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Liam glance up, probably noticing that there's words on the board for the first time since he entered the room.

They're studying the Cold War. The nuclear arms race.

_Hottie Doucheface: What?_

Amy shakes her head. Sometimes she wonders if she's the only person she knows who actually pays attention in class.

Sometimes it's like they go to school but they never even set foot in a classroom.

_Amy: Middle of the board. Big letters. Can't miss it._

She watches him out of the corner of her eye, seeing the clueless look settling in on his face and she starts typing again.

_Amy: MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction._

Even Liam gets that.

_Hottie Doucheface: So you lie to Karma when it suits you. When it's for something you want._

For something she  _wants_?

Yeah. Because sleeping with Liam fucking Booker was so high on Amy's 'want' list. It was a fucking dream come true.

Amy drops her phone on the desk and stares at the ceiling. This, she thinks, is why she's a lesbian.

Boys are too fucking dumb to deal with.

_Hottie Doucheface: So that makes sense. That explains why you lied to Karma about the party._

Amy  _knows_ why she lied: Reagan.

Plus, she can think of at least half a dozen other reasons, every one of which she taps out to Liam in rapid-fire succession.

_Amy: I didn't want to hang out with you?_

_Amy: Your family is evil and creepy and possibly psychotic?_

_Amy: I like Google better?_

_Amy: I like Bing better?_

_Amy: I have to watch you and Karma try to eat each other's faces enough already?_

_Amy: Because I DIDN'T WANT YOUR FAMILY TO RECOGNIZE ME, YOU DUMB FUCKING SHIT?_

That was the most reasonable. That was MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction.

Whatever else it was, Liam and Amy's relationship rested on one simple principle.

If one of them went down, they  _both_  went down.

_Hottie Doucheface: Nice try. You can come up with every bullshit reason you want, but we both know the truth._

The truth?

Amy's pretty sure whatever it is Liam thinks he knows, it's got a tenuous relationship - at best- with the truth.

_Hottie Doucheface: You lied to her. Because you want her back._

Amy stares at her phone, trying desperately to wrap her mind around it. Trying to comprehend how any one person can be so abso-fucking-lutely stupid.

But she can really only think one thing.

Fuck Shane.

* * *

Amy doesn't see Leila, not even when the tiny girl is right in her face.

Amy  _can't_  see Leila. She can't see anyone but Karma.

But she does  _feel_  Reagan. Amy feels her girlfriend move up behind her and she can feel the tension coming off of her in waves deep enough to drown the room.

And Amy has a vague awareness of something going on, of Reagan's hand snapping up, of her girlfriend's voice - in that tone Amy's almost never heard, but knows she doesn't want to - of a ripple of something (anger? fear?) rolling through the crowd.

It's all there. It's all happening. But it's all underwater. Blurry and garbled and not quite real.

Everything is sinking, taking on water and drowning its way beneath the surface.

Everything but Karma.

Because Amy can see it. She can see it in her best friend's eyes. Karma's not staying down.

She's fighting. She's kicking desperately for the surface.

Denial is strong in this one.

And all Amy can think, the only coherent thought she can form, is so very simple.

Stay down. Stay the fuck down.

But Karma's never listened to her before. Why would she start now?

And so Karma fights. And claws and scratches and pulls herself up.

And Amy offers up one last silent prayer.

Stay down. Please Karma. Don't make me do this.

Stay down.

"Don't you  _fucking_ touch her."

And in that moment? It's not Karma's world that comes crashing down.

It's Amy's.

* * *

There's a part of Amy that wants to point out what, to her at least, is the oh so fucking obvious flaw in Liam's logic.

Amy can't want Karma  _back_.

She never had her in the first place.

Amy thinks about it, considers it for just a moment. But she knows, ultimately, that it would do her no good.

The truth about her and Karma is one she knows Liam has never quite seen.

He knows they faked it. He knows Amy had feelings for Karma all along. He knows Karma rejected Amy and, for all intents and purposes, chose him.

Liam  _knows_  it. But knowing and believing it - especially that last part, the choosing him bit - are, according to Shane, very different things for Liam.

"He's convinced," Shane said once. "He's got this theory that Karma's got secret feelings for you, so secret even she doesn't know about them."

Karma, according to Liam, is secretly bi.

She's just afraid to admit it.

But, Liam thinks, sooner or later, Amy will do or say something that will force Karma to face the truth.

Something like, maybe, getting a girlfriend.

Or pushing Karma away.

Or both.

And Liam knows, without a doubt, that it it ever comes down to a choice for Karma, if she ever has to choose between him and Amy?

There's no choice at all.

And, try as she might, Amy can't see it. All she can see is exactly what she's seen since the first moment Liam came into their lives.

There  _was_  a choice.

And Karma made it.

Over and over and fucking over again.

_Amy: WTF are you talking about?_

For the first time, Amy looks over at Liam, rather than just side-eyeing him across the room, and she's startled by what she sees.

And maybe even a little scared.

Liam looks tired. Not in the 'I haven't slept in days' way.

More like the 'I can't keep this up much longer' way. The 'this isn't going to end well and I'm the only one who knows it' way.

Amy knows those looks.

She saw them in the mirror for weeks.

Amy thinks about trying to say something nice. Her fingers ghost across her phone screen as she tries to find the words.

But trying to find something nice to say to Liam Booker?

For Amy, that's like trying to find a reason to hate doughnuts.

Her phone vibrates in her hand and Amy nearly drops it.

_Hottie Doucheface: I'm not stupid, Amy._

Amy doesn't reply. Insulting the boy would only make this worse and she's  _trying_  to be nice, even if that only means  _not_  being mean.

_Hottie Doucheface: You're pulling away from Karma. And we both know that sooner or later that's going to drive her nuts._

She picked  _you,_  Amy thinks. Karma's sanity is already questionable.

_Hottie Doucheface: I found this pic. I found out you lied to her. How long until she figures it out? How long until she starts feeling cut off and pushed away?_

Amy's fingers drum on the desk. She wants to tell him he's being dumb. That he should stop looking for trouble.

But the thing is… he's making  _sense_.

Amy decides she only has one real option.

Be Karma.

Deny, deny, deny.

_Amy: I'm not pushing her away._

It's not a lie, not really.

There's a difference, Amy thinks, between pushing someone away and just… not trying to keep them around.

_Hottie Doucheface: Bullshit. That's exactly what you're doing._

Amy starts typing without thinking. This whole thing is starting to become more trouble than it's worth.

Not  _starting_.  _Is._ Has been right from the beginning.

_Amy: Why would I push her away? Other than, you know, it fucking killing me to see you two together?_

Once upon a time, Amy knows, that was true.

And even if it's not true now, it's easier than the truth.

_Hottie Doucheface: So. You admit it. You're jealous. You want us to break up._

Of course Amy wants them to break up. He's an ass. Karma's wonderful.

You do the fucking math.

_Hottie Doucheface: I can see your plan, Amy. I know what you're doing._

Amy stares at her phone, but doesn't reply. She can feel Liam's eyes boring into her.

_Hottie Doucheface: Do you really think I'm going to let it happen? MAD, Amy. Fucking MAD._

* * *

_Don't you_ fucking  _touch her._

Even before all this, even before faking it and Liam and the confession and Reagan, even before  _everything_?

Karma always saw Amy as hers.

And that wasn't a problem when Amy saw things the same way.

When Amy saw herself as  _Karma's_  Amy, something like this wouldn't have been an issue.

But she's not Karma's Amy anymore.

Trouble is, Karma doesn't see it that way.

Amy can sense the tension ratcheting up in the room. She can practically  _feel_  Reagan seething.

And all she can think is why didn't Karma just stay the fuck down?

Because now? Reagan's going to  _put_ her down.

"Get out of the way, Shane," Amy hears Reagan say, but she can't look, she can't watch. "Let the little bitch say whatever she's got to say."

Once upon a time, someone talking that way to Karma would have been too much for Amy to take. Once upon a time,  _that_  would have been enough to earn someone a punch in the face.

Liam got two of those tonight. And not a one of them for saying shit about Karma.

Times change.

Reagan's voice cuts through Amy's mind again. "She kissed my girlfriend, Shane."

It's amazing, Amy thinks. Amazing how something so simple -  _my girlfriend -_  how two little words, three fucking syllables combined, can still make a heart beat faster, can make breathing a little harder, can make someone feel so fucking loved.

And so afraid at the same time.

Amy can't look - and didn't we establish  _that_  already - she can't watch what's coming. She was willing, just moments ago, to twist the blade herself. She was willing to put Karma out of her misery and kill off the last gasping, flopping on the deck bits of their friendship.

And now?

Now she can't bear to watch. Amy can't even lift her eyes, can't look, can't let herself see.

Reagan's pissed. Reagan's hurt. Reagan's out for blood.

And Karma's too fucking stubborn, scared, hurt, and just too fucking  _Karma_  to not give it to her.

And there's nothing Amy can do about it.

"She kissed my girlfriend, Shane," Reagan says. "Where I come from, that's not something that goes unanswered."

There's nothing Amy can do about it.

"This isn't where you come from."

There's nothing she can do. Until there is.

* * *

Amy shoves her phone into her pocket and raises her hand. "May I use the restroom?"

She's out of her seat and halfway to the door before her teacher can even say yes. Halfway down the hall, almost to the safety of the closest bathroom before she hears the footsteps behind her and feels the hand on her elbow that she fucking  _knew_  was coming.

Liam spins her around to face him and immediately wishes he hadn't.

He's seen Amy angry before. He remembers the rage flickering behind her eyes the night  _after_  that night.

_How do you think Karma would feel if she found out her soulmate slept with… you?_

Liam's seen her angry.

So he knows this is something more. Something worse.

"Amy -"

He gets one word out before Amy grabs him and pulls him into the janitor's closet, quietly shutting the door behind them.

Liam tries again - "Amy -" - but gets no further this time.

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up." Amy stalks to the other side of the small closet, keeping as much physical distance between them as possible.

That's her one concession toward Liam. She's thinking of his safety. Because right now?

All she's really thinking about is how easily her hands could fit around his surprisingly girlish throat.

"You're going to threaten me?" she asks him. " _You're_  going to threaten  _me_?"

"It wasn't meant to -"

Amy holds up a hand, effectively silencing him. "Do you have any  _fucking_ clue how this goes Liam?" Amy asks. "Do you really understand the concept of mutually assured destruction?"

Liam nods. He wasn't texting  _all_  the way through class. "If one of us goes down, the other goes down."

Amy nods. "Right. That's how it's supposed to work." She leans against the wall, kicking her foot against an empty mop bucket. "That's why us and the Russians just kept building the missiles, kept stockpiling them. To make sure both sides got the point."

She pushes off the wall. Takes one firm step toward him.

"You fire first or you fire second?" she asks. "It doesn't matter. You're still fucking dead."

"I get it," Liam snaps. "It doesn't matter which of us tells her. It's still game over for both of us."

Amy glares at him, her anger rapidly reaching a tipping point.

_Game?_

_Game over?_

For months, Amy's lived with the guilt. For months, she's had to endure the heartache of worry, the fear of what would happen if -  _when_  - Karma finds out.

Amy let that guilt drive her to nearly fucking everything up the day of the scavenger hunt. And then she let it steer her into doing the right - no matter how wrong it felt - thing.

She put Liam and Karma back together.

He's where he is, he's  _with_  her - loving her, touching her, kissing her,  _fucking_  her, most likely - all because of Amy.

And now? Now he wants to get all butthurt and start laying down warnings?

 _Fuck. That_.

Fuck  _him_.

"That's how it's  _supposed_ to work," Amy says, still glaring at him. "But come on, Liam. You're sort of a smart guy. You can see the writing on the wall, right?"

Liam tenses and Amy can't help but smile. She's hit a nerve.

And she's going to burn that fucker right on out.

"If she finds out, Liam? It doesn't matter from who, it doesn't matter  _how_ ," Amy takes one more step closer to him, mentally high-fiving herself as she sees him shrink away. "You can tell her, I can tell her, she can see a fucking videotape of your sad ass attempts at pleasuring a woman."

Liam starts to say something but he sees that rage again and thinks better of it.

Amy rolls on, not even noticing. "None of that matters," she says. "All you need to know is this. If Karma  _ever_  finds out? It won't be mutually assured destruction, Booker."

She takes one more step, getting herself all up in his space.

"The only one getting destroyed, Liam? Will be you." Amy tips her head, as evil a smirk as Liam's ever seen creasing her face. "If Karma finds out? Kiam dies. Karmy?"

Amy turns and opens the door.

"Karmy will be just fucking fine."

* * *

Amy's own words echo in her head.

_You shouldn't have been there._

_I should have._

_I should be the one dealing with this._

_I was the one who kept the secret. I was the one who shut her out._

It  _should_  have been her. Amy knows. It should have been her that had to deal with Karma. It should have been her in the truck. It should have been her in the coffee shop.

It should have been her one month, three weeks, and five days ago.

It should have been her then.

It  _can_  be her. Now.

"This isn't where you come from," Amy says.

She's trying to be firm, trying to let Reagan know. Amy's sure she'll get it. Amy's sure her girlfriend will get the message even if she never actually comes out and says it.

 _Karma_  would. Karma would know without even having to think about it.

That's what history does for you.

"This isn't where you come from," Amy says,  _again._  "So, right now, just walk away."

Amy's sure Reagan will pick up what she's putting down. She's sure Reagan will figure it out.

Any second now...

But when Reagan doesn't move? Amy's certainty wavers, just a bit.

"I said walk away, Reagan."

Amy's firm. Definitive. She's saying everything without saying anything at all.

"Walk away _._ "  _Let me do this._

"Take Theo. Get Lauren out to the truck."  _Save_ them _, please. There's nothing I can do for Karma, but my sister can be spared. Even just a little._

"Just go."

_I got this._

For a moment, Amy can see it in Reagan's eyes. She can see it sinking in. Reagan might not know  _exactly_ , she may not know as clearly as Karma would, but she's getting it.

She trusts Amy. And that trust is enough. Enough to get her moving, to get her to haul Theo and Lauren the hell out of here before anything worse -

"You heard her, Reagan. Go. Leave  _us_."

And as Reagan launches herself at Karma, intent on making sure Amy's best friend understands exactly who the  _us_  is around here now, it just keeps running through Amy's mind on an endless repeating loop.

 _It should have been me_.

And as she grabs Reagan from behind, spinning her around and away from Karma -  _protecting_ Karma and Reagan both. - Amy knows.

It  _will_ be her.

No matter what she has to do, no matter what she has to say.

This ends with  _her_.

She owes both the women she loves  _that_  much.

* * *

The door slams shut in front of Amy, Liam's hand pressed against it.

She thought it was over. She thought she'd told him how it is and dropped the fucking mic.

Liam thinks different.

Amy spins to face him and this time it's her turn to be caught off guard by the look in his eyes, at the fire burning behind them.

Five minutes ago, Liam was barely alive, his body and his mouth moving on auto-pilot.

Apparently, Amy has a knack for bringing the dead back to life.

'So," he says, still standing  _way_ too fucking close, his hand still flush against the door, his outstretched arm keeping Amy trapped. "So  _that's_  the real plan, isn't it? You want Karma to find out."

"What?" Amy hates the way her voice trips higher, hates showing even a hint of weaknesses, hates letting Liam fucking Booker know he has any power over her.

But his arm, his breath, his body so fucking close.

All Amy can think of, all she can  _feel_  is that night.

And the churning of her stomach as it rolls over and over and she's so glad she hasn't eaten lunch yet.

"You're nuts," she says. "You think I  _want_  Karma to find out?"

Liam nods, slowly and Amy can see it in his eyes. He knows what he's doing. He knows how being this close to her is affecting her.

It may be the first time ever that Liam enjoys a girl being repulsed by him.

"You said it," he snaps. "Kiam dies. Karmy lives." He leans just a bit closer. "You get what you want. Me out of Karma's life. And your… friendship… restored."

Though she'd never say it, Amy has to admit the plan has a certain logic, a smattering of elegance, a…

Nope. She can't even make  _herself_  think that.

"Do you get all your ideas from old Scooby-Doo episodes? Or are you just the worst plotter in your Dr. Fucking Evil of a family?"

Liam steps back, stung, not by the words, but by the fight. He thought he'd broken her down, that he had taken back control.

He should know by now. Amy's the one girl he can't ever control.

"Face it Amy," he says, leaning back against a stack of boxes. "It's all right there. Karma finds out. You lie or beg or whatever you have to do to make me the bad guy. I'm history and you're one step closer to getting in her pants."

Amy pushes off the door and steps closer, her anger winning out over her revulsion. "It's always about sex with you, isn't it? Right from the start, that's all this was."

"And so what if it was?" Liam bites back. He's tired of being the bad guy. "I'm a teenage boy, Amy. We think girls are hot. And we think hot girls making out with other hot girls is even hotter." He kicks back against the boxes. "Forgive me for having a libido."

Amy can't help but hear the same words, months earlier.

_I'm a fucking teenage girl._

Shit. Maybe they really do belong together.

"It's not the libido that's the problem," she says. "I don't blame you for the desire or the attraction. How can I? You think all I wanted to do with Karma was bake cookies and paint our nails?"

"No," Liam says, matter-of-factly. "You wanted to fuck her. Just like I did."

Amy swallows hard, his words weighing on her. She's never thought of it it like that or, at least, let herself think about it like that. Much.

But, Amy admitted to herself, Liam had a point.

She had wanted to fuck Karma. And when she couldn't, when she found out he had…

Amy leans back against the door and lets out a heavy sigh, praying silently that the sobs she can feel building up don't ever come.

"I  _loved_  her," she says softly, the bitter boiling anger gone. "And she… "

"She never saw it."

Her eyes snap up to meet his and, for just a moment, he's the Liam she saw at his house that day.

"And that's just so much bullshit," he continues, his eyes dropping to the floor. "Because  _I_ saw it. Shane… _everyone_  saw it. It was so fucking obvious."

"Not to her," Amy says. "Not to Karma."

Liam shakes his head and a small smile crosses his lips. "Even now," he says. "Even now you're defending her." He paces to the other side of the room. "She saw it Amy. You  _know_  she did."

Amy stares at the ground. It's all she can stare at. If she looks up, she knows the room will be spinning, Liam's face will be swirling in and out of the boxes and the mops and the ancient wooden brooms.

The cold hard concrete floor is the only constant. The only thing that doesn't shift, not like her life, her  _world_  is shifting under her with every word out of Liam's mouth.

"I saw it," he says and there's an undercurrent to his voice, guilt or sadness or something else that sounds so out of place coming from him. "I saw it every time I asked her. Every time I pushed her, every time I told her how much like a couple you too seemed, even after she said it was over."

Amy's mouth is dry and her tongue feels like dead weight in her mouth.

"Saw what?" she stammers out. She doesn't want to, she doesn't  _want_  to ask.

But she  _has_ to.

Liam steps closer to her, but the threat is gone. "She knew. Every time. She knew why I asked, she knew why I couldn't believe it was over between you too."

Amy squeezes her eyes shut, lids damming up against the tears.

"She knew you were in love with her," Liam says. "She knew and she didn't care."

* * *

"She said 'us'," Reagan says. "Us, Amy. As in you and her. Not you and me. You. Her. Us."

Amy knows what Karma said. She knows what Karma  _meant_.

Karma  _said_  'us'. She  _meant_  ' _Fuck you, Reagan. You lose. I win.'_

Yeah. Like there's any winners here.

Amy wants to reach out. She has to fight to keep her arms at her sides. She has to stare at the floor, because she can't look her girlfriend in the eye.

She can't see the pain in those eyes, the ones she can lose herself in for hours. She can't see the trust breaking behind them, can't see the fear and terror clouding them over.

Amy told Reagan. She  _told_  her.

_I'm choosing us._

And she is. In every way she can possibly think of, Amy's choosing Reagan, choosing their relationship, their love, their future.

That's why it  _has_  to be her. It has to be Amy that finishes this.

Because she knows. She fucking knows she can't wake up one day a month from now or six months or a year or five… Amy can't wake up one day in Reagan's arms and know that it was her girlfriend that made the decision for her.

Sometimes, Amy feels like every one of her decisions these last few months, every single one - up to and including fucking Liam - was never hers.

They were Karma's.

Amy's life wasn't hers. For weeks, for months, right up to the moment she hung up on Karma at the rave, her life wasn't her own.

She can see Liam on the ground and she remembers.

_She knew._

_She knew you were in love with her. She knew and she didn't care._

It's not that simple and Amy knows it. She told Liam as much in that janitor's closet. She told him and told him again, she wouldn't let him leave until he said believed her, said he was wrong.

He must have imagined it, he said. It was all in his head.

It wasn't as cut and dried as Liam made it out to be. Karma wasn't as thoughtless and evil and uncaring as he painted her.

But Amy knows.

It wasn't  _all_  in his head.

And that's why she knows she has to be the one to do this. It has to be her, not Reagan.

Because Amy can't live with her life being someone else's anymore.

Not now, not after having a taste.

Not after one month, three weeks, and five days of something else. Something not for Karma or Shane or Liam or Hester.

Something… just for her.

And, God help her, she wants to tell Reagan. Amy wants to take her girlfriend in her arms and kiss it all away. She wants to make it right.

Reagan's words dance in her mind.

 _She said us_.

Amy wants to tell her. She wants to tell Reagan and Shane and Karma and Liam's unconscious fucking body and every single one of the cell phone cameras taping the entire thing.

She wants them all to know. There's only  _one_ 'us' now.

Karmy's dead.

Amy wants to. But she can't.

Not yet.

"Reagan…"

Amy trails off, the words dying in her throat. Her arms lock at her sides, her eyes drop to the floor.

And all Amy can do is hope.

Hope that one month, three weeks, five days is enough history, enough of a bond for Reagan to get it, for her to understand.

And as Amy hears Reagan collect Theo and Lauren, as she hears them make their way out through the crowd, she knows Reagan's stalling.

Amy knows her girlfriend's steps. She knows when Reagan slows down, when she takes just a fraction of a fraction of an extra second on her way to the door.

And Amy knows. They're both hoping.

And when Reagan's finally gone, when Amy can feel every eye in the place staring at her, when she knows every one of them is thinking the same thing, she turns.

And there's Karma. Standing next to Shane, still wobbly, still drunk and still - no doubt - hurting.

But she's got that smile. The one that used to make Amy's heart drop and soar all at once.

 _I loved her_.

And it's oh so fucking clear, right there on Karma's face, in that smile. And on Shane's face, in the way he can't make his eyes meet her's, in the way he can't quite look at her.

Amy sees it in every stare, every look, in the way Lizbeth and Leila are practically bouncing in place.

They all think they know.

They all think Amy chose.

And she did.

Because she knew it all along. If it ever came down to a choice between Karma and Reagan?

It was never a choice.

And as Karma stares at her, smiling that smile, holding out her arms even as she wobbles slightly against Shane, as Amy sees it as clear as day all over Karma's face -  _I won_  - she knows it's time.

Time to finish this.


	22. Chapter 22

_**A/N:  Sorry this took so long.  A month and a half of working seven days a week will do that to you.  Hopefully, updates will come a little quicker from now on.  This is, finally, the end of the party and I think it moves a little quicker than the last couple.  If you're a big Karma fan, you may want to skip it.  Sorry (not really).  Replies, comments, hate mail all gratefully accepted here or on tumblr.** _

 

 

The first time Amy tries to end it is the night of Karma's sixteenth birthday.

It's the first time she tries,  _really_ tries, but it's not the first time she's thought about it.

Not even close.

She's thought about it thousands of times over the last ten years, practically from the moment she and Karma met.

Amy's always known. This friendship? The one she talks about breaking all the rules?

_We're soulmates._

_We're going to spend our lives together_.

This friendship? It has an expiration date.

For all her bluster, for all the lip service she pays to the ultra-romantic notions of best-friendship that Karma rambles on about, Amy is, at heart, a realist.

Deep down? She doesn't believe in forever.

Maybe it was Jack. Or her stepfather. Or her other stepfather. Or her other other stepfather.

Yeah.

Amy doesn't exactly have a lengthy list of forever role models.

So it only makes sense that she has, in some small part of her heart - and a slightly larger part of her mind - spent so much time over the last decade preparing for this moment.

She stares at the two houses set on the table before her. Perfect miniature replicas of the future Karma has planned out for them in exacting detail.

A future Amy's never once actually thought they'd get to.

She'd thought they'd get closer than this though.

Most times, in Amy's mind, it's been college. Karma always talks about them applying to the same schools. Rooming together.

"And then," she says, "we'll get an apartment off campus before we graduate and then after that, we'll find a better apartment and then those houses right next door to each other…"

Amy stares at her perfectly little faked-up version of Karma's vision and has to blink back tears.

In her weaker moments - so, basically  _every_  moment since the kiss in the gym - Amy's found comfort in the things Karma leaves out.

Other people. Husbands. Wives.

It's not like Karma never suggests they'll have those. Amy knows the kids in Karma's imaginings - the ones that call her Aunt Amy - don't just magically appear. But those other people, the people Amy has never - not even before the kiss - been able to visualize were never what Karma focused on.

They were never what made her eyes light up. Never what made the smile leap off her face.

_That_  was Amy. Always Amy.

In her weaker moments, Amy had let herself believe that would be enough. That they would break all the usual rules. That they really were soulmates.

Her heart wanted it. Her mind wanted it.

But her mind, at least, was smart enough to know.

In the end?

Wanting doesn't mean a thing.

 

* * *

 

 

The night of Shane's party, Amy knows.

She knows what she wants. She knows  _who_  she wants.

In her entire life, Amy's never known anything the way she knows this:

It's Reagan.

Amy's pretended there was no choice to make.

Her heart wanted it that way. Her mind wanted it that way.

But her mind, at least, was smart enough to know.

There  _was_  a choice. And in the end?

Karma was going to make sure she made it. Amy had expected it. She'd known, somewhere deep down, Karma wasn't going to be OK with Reagan.

She hadn't expected the kiss though.

Amy knows she should have. She saw the desperation in Karma's eyes. Desperate Karma wasn't above desperate measures.

Threesome ringing any bells?

Amy understands now. If Karma's this desperate, if she's so scared of losing her that she would kiss her - that she would somehow convince herself that was even a little bit OK - then there's only one way Amy can finish this. It isn't what she wants - there's only one time in her life she can ever remember  _wanting_  to hurt Karma - but Amy understands.

Karma is tenacious. She's determined. When she sets her mind on something - or  _someone_  - heaven help anyone who gets in her way.

Amy's eyes drift to Liam. On the floor. Unconscious.

Karma's love? No matter how well-intentioned, how genuine, how freely given it is?

It has casualties.

And Amy knows, she fucking  _knows_ , that if she doesn't end this here and now, Reagan's gonna be the next one knocked out.

And that won't happen.

Amy knows what she has to do. But knowing?

Doesn't make it any easier.

Especially with Karma's arms around her. Her head buried in Amy's neck. Her hot and salty tears running down Amy's skin and soaking her shirt.

Fuck.

Amy reaches up and pries Karma's fingers loose from around her neck and slowly takes a step back, out of the other girl's embrace. Karma's still clearly drunk, but she's standing on her own and there's only a short wobble as Amy steps away.

"Karma-"

Karma shakes her head vigorously - a little too vigorously it would seem as she has to shut her eyes for a moment, trying to still the spinning room - and holds a hand up to silence Amy.

"It's OK," she says, eyes still squeezed shut. "You don't have to say it."

Amy tenses slightly, feeling dismissed.

_You're just confused._

Karma's presuming. What Amy's going to say. What she's going to feel.

Amy sighs. For a bright girl, sometimes Karma can be ridiculously slow on the uptake.

"Say what?" Amy asks through gritted teeth and even though she knows the answer already.

Karma's not the only one who can presume.

Karma's eyes flicker open and they're surprisingly clear. Clear but tired. "That you're sorry," she says, offering Amy a small smile that only sets the blonde more on edge. "I know, Aims. I know you're sorry. And I know it wasn't your fault."

Karma takes one small step towards Amy, reaching out a hand to her friend, as she glances down at Liam.

"I know exactly  _who's_ to blame."

 

* * *

 

 

Amy's thought about it so many times over the years.

And she's thought about it more in the last few weeks than in all those years combined. Ever since that night.

Ever since the morning after.

The moment Amy woke up next to Liam, she knew. Everything she'd been expecting for the last ten years? It wasn't so far off anymore. It wasn't a dot on the horizon way down the road.

The end of Karma and Amy was coming. And it was coming faster than Amy had ever expected.

Seeing Liam there next to her, knowing what she'd done with him the night before - even if, mercifully, she couldn't remember most of it - had changed everything.

Amy had always held on, desperately, to the idea that losing Karma was an 'if' not a 'when'.

Liam fucking Booker lying naked in her bed was all Amy needed to see to know that 'if' wasn't an option anymore.

But, truthfully, she'd always known. 'If' was a long shot made up of a million things and a million choices and a million sacrifices - probably every last one of them hers - that would have to fall just right.

Amy knows their futures were on different paths.

Karma has dreams. Plural.

Amy only has one.

And that just doesn't work. Amy knows it. She knows those scales are uneven. She knows that kind of tipped balance can never hold, can never last. She knows, in the long run, it's for the best.

Trouble is, knowing doesn't help. Not even a little.

When it ends, Karma will lose her best friend.

Amy will lose her rock. Her comfort. Her constant.

She'll lose the one thing that kept her from disappearing forever.

Amy doesn't kid herself. She knows she'll be lost without Karma. And as much as losing her best friend scares her?

_That_  scares her more.

Amy doesn't know who she is without Karma.

And pretty soon? She's going to  _have_ to find out.

 

* * *

 

 

Amy stares down at Karma's hand.

And, for the first time she can ever remember, she doesn't even think of taking it.

"Amy?"

She ignores Karma, ignores the question in her voice, ignores the first inklings her best friend is having that something isn't quite… right.

Amy's eyes flick to Liam, still lying on the floor.

_I know_ exactly  _who's to blame._

She and Reagan put him there. He had it coming. He told Reagan all that bullshit about Amy's 'plan'. He fucked with Lauren.

He fired first.

They fired second.

"Amy?"

_It doesn't matter. You're still fucking dead._

"Amy?"

Those inklings Amy heard in Karma's voice? Yeah, they're not so 'ink' anymore.

Karma  _knows_. And even if she doesn't, not quite yet, she's on the way there.

And when Amy finally turns her gaze back to her, Karma recoils.

It's half a step. A shudder more than anything. It's nothing anyone else would even notice.

Amy's  _not_  anyone else.

"This isn't Liam's fault, Karma," Amy says. "Not  _just_  his fault."

And she sees it in Karma's eyes, just as she knew she would.

Denial.

It's like pulling blinds shut over a window. Amy can watch the slats closing, the reality of the situation like the light of the sun.

Never getting in.

"He took advantage of you, Amy," Karma says. The words are hollow. Rehearsed. She's known less than twenty minutes and Karma's already got the script down pat.

"Karma -"

She cuts Amy off, her voice ringing out more confident with every word. "He knew, Amy," she says. "He knew you were hurting and drunk and he wanted to hurt me-"

"So do I."

Amy's not sure who notices the slip first. Her? Karma? Or the crowd, who - judging from the gasps - are riveted.

Karma finds her voice first. " _Do_?" she asks. "You mean,  _did_ , right?"

This is the moment. This is the moment Amy's known was coming for the better part of the last ten years.

This is why you stockpile the missiles. This is why you arm yourself to the fucking teeth.

So when the time comes?

Destruction is guaranteed.

"No," Amy says. "Not  _did. Do._  I want to hurt you Karma. I've wanted to ever since that night. And after what you did tonight..."

This time no one misses the recoil, the way Karma visibly staggers back, almost falling into Shane.

"No," Karma says. "I don't believe you," she says. "I  _know_ you and you-"

"Stop saying that," Amy says. Her voice is calm. Cool.

Lethal.

"You don't know me, Karma. Not anymore."

_This_ is the moment.

"You can live in your denial about Liam all you want, Karma," Amy says. "You can pretend it was all him, if you want. But you should know the truth."

Karma straightens up as best she can. If she's going to take the hit, she's doing it on her feet.

She just never knows when to stay down.

"And what's the  _truth_ , Amy?"

Years later, when Karma remembers this night, most of it will be a drunken blur. But the look in Amy's eyes?

That will be crystal clear.

Because, for the first time ever, when Karma looks in those eyes she knows so well?

There's nothing there.

"Truth is," Amy says. "I knew  _exactly_ what I was doing when I fucked Liam." The crowd murmurs again and Amy almost laughs as Shane steps closer to Karma, as if he can protect her. "I  _knew_ ," Amy says again.

"I was breaking your heart," she says. "And that's  _why_ I did it."

 

* * *

 

 

Amy stares at the two houses set up side-by-side on the table. They're perfect. Exact. Scale models of their future together.

She worked on them for a year, ever since the last scavenger hunt, the day Karma turned fifteen.

When Karma was off working on Liam, Amy found solace in the details. While Karma was having her super sexy secret affair with a real live boy?

Amy was having one of her own. A little less sexy, a little more secret.

Probably just about as real.

She scoops up one small doll, the tiny little Karma. Red hair. A little guitar. A flowery dress.

While Karma and Liam were sneaking in and out of the art room, Amy was getting little Karma's hair color just right. It took her hours to get the shade she wanted.

She knows Karma won't notice. She wouldn't notice if it was off, even just a little. She won't notice that it's exactly right.

But Amy does.

Sometimes, at night, while she was working so patiently and focused so intently that she couldn't keep her thoughts under control?

Amy realized what she was doing. She realized how far past 'best friend' any of this was, how far past it this had always been.

And she had to wonder.

How the fuck did she ever  _not_  know she was in love with Karma?

Amy took such painstaking care to make sure every detail of Karma's house was just right.

Karma  _hates_  handles? Every door has a knob.

Karma prefers curtains to shades? Every window has them.

There's a tiny little recording studio in the basement, with a little stand for the little guitar and a tiny stool for little Karma to sit at. The wall in the bedroom is a mural of the comedy and drama masks swirling around each other.

The exact same design Karma sketched when she decided - before she saw the needles - that she wanted a tattoo.

But it's the wall in the living room that Amy knows says it all.

Music notes. From one end of the room to the other. Amy knows next to nothing about music, so she had to ask Mr. Dell, the music teacher for help.

She'd left that wall for last, hoping to find something perfect.

And, in the end, it was Karma that gave it to her.

The notes? If someone actually played them?

They might sound familiar...

_Cause you're the salt to my pepper_

_You're the moon to my sun_

_We're like Batman and Robin_

_When we're out having fun_

_And we're gonna be together_

_Till we're old and grey_

_So all I ask of you is please don't pull away_

It was the final perfect touch.

The night Karma played her that song, Amy called it 'waterboarding her heart'. And, really, it was.

Because the song was perfect. It was silly and sweet and so quintessentially Karma. It was everything she said their lives would be like. Always together.

The salt to my pepper.

We're like Batman and Robin.

Amy wonders, absently, if Karma knew…

There was more than one Robin.

Batman? Only one. Always the same.

But the sidekick?

One moved on. Another one died. One stepped out on his own.

And someone else took his place.

Amy can't help but look at the miniature male doll standing just outside Karma's house. It's small. It's plain. She didn't waste much time on it. There's no facial features. No unique marks or clothes or anything to make it stand out even a little.

It's not Liam.

But, Amy knows, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be him. Or the guy Karma will meet in college. Or the bass player in her first band. Or the songwriting partner she'll meet at a coffee shop in Paris.

It doesn't  _have_  to be any of them. It  _could_ be any of them.

Which one doesn't matter.

The only thing that does?

It's  _not_  her.

 

* * *

 

 

It's Shane who reacts first. Even before the tears flood Karma's eyes, before her knees give and she buckles, it's Shane who steps forward.

His mistake.

"Amy, don't you think that's enoug-"

The glare she fixes him with stops Shane cold. He's seen that look before. He thought he  _knew_  that look.

Amy's  _Liam_  look.

"You," Amy says, pointing at him, "don't get a fucking say."

"You," she says, advancing on him, "outed us. Outed  _me_. Because  _you_ wanted lesbian friends."

Shane takes a step back, his heels bumping against Liam's leg.

"You," Amy says, her finger poking him right in the chest, "wanted lesbians. You wanted to see how everything 'played out'. You wanted all this." Amy waves her arms, encompassing the party as a whole.

"Amy, I -"

"No," Amy says, shaking her head. "No more, Shane. I don't want to hear any more bullshit about not outing people and not your secret to tell and gay scouts fucking honor." Amy lets her hand drop, lets it shake at her side. "You could have told Liam the truth at any point and fucking spared us all. But you  _chose_  to do 'the right thing' then. Because it served you."

"That's fucking rich."

Amy turns to find Karma inches from her, eyes blazing. "You're going to lecture Shane on doing the right thing? Right after you confess to fucking  _my boyfriend_  just to hurt me?"

Though she'll never admit it, Amy's relieved. She's glad Karma's up in her face, that she's fighting back.

It takes away a little of the guilt.

Not much. But a little.

"I didn't fuck your boyfriend, Karma."

The look on Karma's face is somewhere between bewilderment and anger, confusion and fury. "You just said that you - "

"I fucked  _Liam_ ," Amy corrects. "And Liam? Not your boyfriend. Not that night, anyway. Even if he hadn't cut you loose for lying to him for weeks? Still not your boyfriend cause, in case you forgot, in the eyes of the world?  _You were dating me_."

Understanding washes over Karma's face. "So  _that's_  it?" she asks. "You feel like I cheated? For fuck's sake, Amy. We were  _faking_."

Karma sees the pain flicker across Amy's face for a second, before it's gone again, before the mask slips back down and the Amy she can't reach, the one she doesn't  _know_ , is back.

" _You_  were faking, Karma."

And it all hits Karma at once. That night. The toast. The confession.

_You're just confused._

_I love you. Just not like that._

_I slept with Liam._

She remembers her mother's arms, her soothing words, the tears that wouldn't stop. Karma broke that night, lost without anywhere to turn.

And while she broke?

They fucked.

And the last little bit of denial?

It falls away from Karma's eyes.

"So I wouldn't fuck you?" she says, "So you fucked  _him_? I couldn't love you, not like you wanted, not by my choice, but because I'm not  _fucking gay_  and you decided that gave you a free pass with the boy I love?"

Amy barely even notices the way the words 'I love' don't even phase her. She doesn't even register, not really, that Karma just confessed to loving Liam in front of everyone.

That doesn't matter now.

_This_  does.

"You think this is about fucking, Karma?" Amy's words are pointed. Daggers digging into the soft flesh of their friendship. The armor's gone. The protection long since failed.

"Amy -" Shane tries again, because he knows where this is headed and he'd prefer not to have anyone else unconscious on his floor tonight.

Amy ignores him. "You think this is all because you didn't love me?" she asks. "That I wanted - that I  _want_  - to hurt you because you couldn't feel the same way about me?"

Karma realizes - too late - that she's made the same mistake she made with Reagan. She opened the door. She was so intent on the crimes she  _didn't_  commit - the things she couldn't be blamed for - that she forgot the ones she  _did_.

"You know what I've finally realized about you, Karma?" Amy asks. Karma doesn't even try to reply. She knows that tone. Amy's not looking for conversation.

Not anymore.

"You're a great friend. When it's good for you." Amy desperately want to shove her hands in her pockets, or behind her back - or, God, does she wish Reagan was here to hold them - so no one can see them shake.

"When I came out in front of the whole school," Amy says, "you were right there. When I came out to my mother, on live fucking TV, you were there. When I agreed to your fucking threesome, when I let you call me a sex addict, when I let your parents believe we were a couple? You were right there."

It takes everything she has, but Karma doesn't look away. She won't She  _can't_.

"Every time it worked for you," Amy says, "you were right there. And then, when I came out to  _you_? When I needed you… not to tell me you loved me when you didn't, not to give me false hope… but to be my  _friend_ ….."

"Amy, I'm so-"

"Don't." Amy virtually snarls the word. The last thing she wants, the last thing she  _can_  hear from Karma right now is another 'sorry'.

"You surprised me," Karma says. "I didn't know how to react. I never in a million years…"

Yes. You. Did. Amy wants to scream it at her. She wants to grab Karma by the collar and shake it out of her.

Because she knows.

On some level, Karma knew all along. She  _had_  to. They've known each other too long, too well, too intimately for her to  _not_  know.

But whether she did or she didn't or she should have, it doesn't matter.

What she knew? Immaterial. What she did?

That's all that matters.

"You let me go," Amy says softly. The anger's fading. The rush is cooling.

"What?"

"Maybe you were confused. Or shocked or whatever," Amy says. "But you let me go, Karma. You let me walk out of that room. You didn't chase me. You didn't try and make it right or try and help me… you let me go."

'You don't know me' was Amy's moment.

_This_  is Karma's. The moment when it hits her.

They're done.

"You let me walk out," Amy says, noticing that her hands have stilled at her sides. "And you went to  _him_." Another murmur ripples through the crowd and Amy wishes the floor of the Harvey house would open up and swallow them all. "You didn't choose Liam when you slept with him, Karma. Or when he snuck into the wedding or even on your birthday."

Karma shakes her head. Silently pleads with Amy not to do it.

_Time to finish this_.

"You chose Liam that night," Amy says. "When you literally had a choice. Chase me. Go to him." Amy lets out a long shuddering breath. "And you chose him. And  _that's_  what broke my heart."

Amy raises her head and feels every eye - human and electronic - on her. But she doesn't care.

"And that, Karma?" she says. "Is why I fucked Liam. Because you chose him. You picked him." Amy spares Liam one last look. "When I needed you most, when I needed my best friend, my  _family_? You did what you always do when the shit hits the fan."

"And, wha… what's that?" Karma's voice cracks and she stammers out the words, but she'll be damned if she lets her gaze falter for even a second.

Amy stares right back at her. "You chose," she says. "You chose  _you_."

 

* * *

 

 

The house Amy made for herself?

It's simple. Basic.

Almost unchanged from the stock house it was when Amy bought it.

If Karma's house is a reflection of everything her best friend is and might ever be, then Amy's house is a perfect reflection as well.

A reflection of emptiness. Of blank spaces waiting to be filled.

Spaces Amy has no idea what to do with.

Her every space? Her every empty moment?

For ten years, those have all been filled with Karma.

Amy glances over at 'her' house, the one with the tiny blonde figure in the bedroom. Amy didn't have to to do much to that figure, didn't have to change much to make it her.

She painted a tiny doughnut on the shirt.

There's another small handful of dolls scattered in front of mini-Amy's house, all the ones that came with the kit.

A little brunette in a pink top - the dark haired version of the Amy doll. A tiny blonde with a red beret atop her head.

A tiny little dark haired girl with headphones.

Amy holds them all in her hands. She doesn't know who they are. She doesn't know where she'd meet them, how they'd end up hanging out, how they'd get to know each other.

She doesn't know if they're older or if they have jobs. If they're more experienced than her, if they believe in forever like she wants to but just can't.

She doesn't know how she ever will.

Amy doesn't know any of that. She doesn't know how any of this works, how any of it is supposed to happen.

All she knows is Karma.

And that's why she knows the girl she spent the day with, the one who lashed out at her, who said 'I chose you' like it was a curse…

That's  _not_  Karma.

That's the Karma Amy made.

Amy sees the music notes on Karma's wall again and, cynical as she is, she can't help but notice the irony.

All day long, it was Karma pulling away. Karma who kept growing the distance between them.

It was Karma's mind that was clearly someplace else.

With  _someone_  else.

The night Karma sang her that song, Amy told her - in not so many words - to stop holding on so tight. To give her room.

But today, it was Amy who hung on. She was the one who latched onto Karma and dragged her along.

Amy was the one with the plan. And the harder Karma tried to pull away, the stronger Amy's grip got, the more she refused to let go.

She clung. And she knows it.

She clung desperately to her best friend.

And standing there in the dark, all by herself, Amy can admit it. That's just so much bullshit.

She wasn't clinging to her best friend. She was clawing and pulling and fighting with everything she had to hold onto the girl she loves.

The whole fucking scavenger hunt wasn't to remind Karma of what they were.

It was to remind her of what Amy  _is._ And what Liam  _isn't._

These houses? One last try. One last desperate Hail Mary.

Fuck, Amy thinks. I may as well have just fucking kissed her in front of everyone.

This was all about that part of Karma's heart that belongs to someone else. And Amy knows, even if there was no Liam?

That part of Karma will never be hers.

And that's why she has to do this. That's why this is better.

Amy knows she's going to lose Karma. Sooner rather than later.

Losing her in a hate-filled confrontation full of anger and bitterness and recriminations over shit neither of them can change?

Amy can't handle that.

Losing her to happiness?

Amy can live with  _that_.

She tugs her cell phone out of her pocket and scrolls through her contacts, until she finds the one she's looking for.

_Hottie Doucheface_

She taps the keys, ignoring the tears in her eyes.

_Amy: Meet me at the school courtyard. One hour._

She blanks the phone screen and sits on the bench in front of the houses. Her fingers close on the little Karma doll.

Amy reaches in and gently sets little Karma on the little stool, guitar in hand.

She's doing the right thing. She knows she is.

It's obvious from the way it hurts so fucking much.

 

* * *

 

 

"That's not fair."

Karma's unsteady on her feet. The alcohol. The stress. The absolute beating she's taken tonight. It's all starting to wear on her.

But she'll be fucking damned if she's going to just let  _that_  be the end of it.

"I was in love, Amy, with someone else. And you said it yourself - I couldn't control those feelings any more than you could control yours."

If Amy feels the sting of her own words being thrown back in her face, she doesn't show it.

"Maybe I chose wrong," Karma says. "But to hold that against me? To  _intentionally_  hurt me like that? For one mistake in ten fucking years-"

Amy resists the urge to scoff out loud at 'one mistake' but she  _can't_  resist pointing out the obvious.

"And what about tonight?"

Karma's righteousness takes a hit and she flusters. "What?"

"Tonight," Amy repeats. "I mean, you're right, you know. What I did? Trying to hurt you like that? It's inexcusable. Unforgivable."

Karma nods slowly, afraid she's walking into yet another verbal trap she doesn't see coming.

"But you know the difference between us, Karma?" Amy asks. "From the moment I did it, I did every single thing I could to keep you from knowing. I lied. I begged." She glances down at Liam. "I put you two together." Even now, the words still burn just a little. "I gave you up. For you to be happy."

And there it is. Karma squeezes her eyes shut, as if not looking means it won't come.

"I let you go, Karma," Amy says. "And the first chance - the very first fucking chance - you had to do the same for me, what did you do?"

Karma shakes her head. She won't say it. She  _can't_.

"What did you do?"

Karma opens her eyes, expecting to meet Amy's cold. unfeeling gaze.

Not Reagan's pained one, staring at her over Amy's shoulder.

She came back, Karma thinks.

_She_  chased Amy.

"I kissed you," she says. "In front of Reagan." Karma sees the anger flash through Reagan's eyes and it swells the anger in her own heart, but she pushes it down.

She won't make that mistake again.

"I defended you, Karma," Amy says, still unaware that her girlfriend is back. "To everyone. Lauren, Shane, Reagan, my mother… I fought for you. For  _us_."

"Is that what you call this?" Karma asks. "Fighting for us? Protecting me from Reagan? Sending her away so you can hurt me worse than she ever could?"

"I  _had_  to," Amy says. "You made me do this, Karma. Once you kissed me… I didn't have a choice."

The anger flares in Karma again and she can't stay silent. "I  _made_  you do this?" she nearly yells at Amy. "Fuck you. I didn't make… you make your own choices, Amy. You always have."

Amy nods. "You're right. I do. And I choose Reagan."

The words sting Karma worse than she thought they would.

Fuck. Who is she kidding?

She thought the words would kill her. That she's still standing is testament, she knows, to just how fucking drunk she is.

Tomorrow? Yeah. That's gonna hurt.

"You choose her?" Karma's lashing out. She's going down and she knows it. "Sure didn't look that way to me. Not when you were pulling her off me. Not when you were sending her away."

Reagan's eyes drop to the floor and Karma knows she's scored.

And if that doesn't feel as good as she thought it might a few minutes ago?

Karma will take what she can get.

"I  _had_  to," Amy says again. "I had to do this and I have to hope she understands that. Cause six months or a year or five years from now? She can't look at me and wonder. She can't wonder if I'm only there because she made the decision for me."

"And if she doesn't understand?" Karma asks. The question is for Amy.

But she's looking right at Reagan.

Amy shrugs and squeezes her own eyes shut, willing herself not to cry. She knows the risk she took, she knows what she gambled sending Reagan away.

But she had to.

It had to be her.

And now all she can do is hope. Hope that Reagan is waiting for at the house. Or that she's at the apartment or Planter's or their park.

Hope that she understands.

Amy's eyes open and Karma sees it.

She fucking  _sees_  it.

Amy thought it would take words. She thought it would take pain. She thought the only way to get through to Karma was to push her so far away there was no coming back.

Amy should have known better.

Karma knows her better than anyone.

All it took? Just one look.

The pain, the terror, the absolute devastation just bubbling under Amy's surface - right there, waiting to erupt if Reagan doesn't or  _won't_  understand - that's all Karma needs to see.

It's the same thing she's seen reflected in her own eyes all night long.

And Karma finally gets what Amy's known for so very long.

She reaches up, hands slipping behind her own neck and she unfastens the clasp holding her 'Best Friend' necklace in place. Karma lets the charm fall into her palm, the chain spooling around it.

And she hesitates.

_If you love something…_

Karma makes the trek to Amy in three wobbly steps and takes the blonde's hand in hers.

"I think she understands," she whispers, dropping the necklace into Amy's open palm. "And so do I."

Karma turns away and stumbles, her strength finally giving out, but Shane is there to catch her. Amy stares at him and the necklace and Karma in confusion until he nods past her.

She turns. Reagan's there.

And Amy can't hold it in anymore.

She's sobbing, guttural, heaving wails by the time she reaches Reagan, the force of them only growing stronger as the older girl wraps her up in her arms.

"You didn't leave," Amy chokes out. "Why didn't you leave?"

Reagan watches as Shane leads Karma up the stairs, away from the prying eyes and phone cams. Half an hour ago, she wanted to tear the younger girl apart.

And now…

Sometimes Reagan wishes things could just be simple.

Amy loves her. She loves Amy,

"Why?" Amy asks, again. "Why didn't you leave?"

Maybe it can be simple, Reagan thinks.

Amy  _chose._ Amy chose her.

Why didn't she leave? When she's got Lauren and Theo in the truck? When they got halfway home and she did a U-Turn and almost caused a four car pileup?

Why didn't she leave?

"You stayed," Reagan says softly. "And you know. No matter where you are. I'm never far."


	23. Chapter 23

Amy fucked up.

She's aware of that. Acutely.

She took a chance and, as it turns out, it was an even bigger one that she realized.

She'd hoped - she'd  _believed_  - that Reagan would get it. That she would understand, even if Amy never actually said the words.

_It's you_.

_It's you, but I have to do this._

_I love you. But you have to go._

In her heart, Amy had believed that what she and Reagan had built, even if it was only 1 month, three weeks, and five days old, was  _enough_.

It would see them through anything.

But she hadn't realized - hadn't even  _thought_  at the time - that it didn't matter if Reagan got it.

It didn't matter if she understood.

It still fucking hurt.

Amy still broke her heart.

Throughout the drive home from Shane's, one that seemed to take a thousand times longer than it ever had, Amy kept thinking the same thing over and over.

She'd fucked up.

Horribly. Horrifically.

Every single thing that she could have done wrong, she  _did_  do wrong.

She had hurt everyone tonight. Karma. Reagan. Lauren. Shane.

The one thing she had tried to avoid, the one thing she had so desperately not wanted to do - hurting both the women she loved - was  _exactly_ what she'd done.

And she'd done it worse than she ever could have imagined.

Amy had known Karma for most of her life. She had a thousand -  _ten_  thousand - memories of her. She had seen Karma at her best, her silliest, her sickest, her worst.

And now?

Now there was a new image of Karma that Amy would never forget, a vision she would never be able to wipe from her mind.

Her best friend, crumpled against Shane, being helped up the stairs. Wounded. Gutted.

Broken.

By her.

Amy didn't think she'd ever see Karma again without that image running through her mind.

But  _that_ , Amy knew, didn't matter anymore. She and Karma were done. A lost cause.

She had made her choice.

And, as Lightning bumped along the road back to her mother's house, Amy knew.

The damage, even to the relationship she'd chosen, was going to take a while to be repaired.

The wounds were going to take time to heal.

There was more pain on the way.

But it didn't matter.

Because Reagan's hand was on her thigh. It had been there since the moment they left Shane's house. It hadn't moved, not an inch.

Reagan wasn't squeezing. She wasn't caressing or massaging or drawing little shapes on Amy's leg like she always did.

She was just there.

She was  _always_  there.

And Amy knew.

She'd chosen right.

 

* * *

 

 

Lightning's front seat was cramped, what with Theo and Lauren crowded in as well. Amy was practically on top of Reagan, pressed up against her girlfriend's side in the tight quarters.

Normally, she wouldn't have minded.

Normally, she might have even taken advantage of the situation. Teased Reagan a little. Let her warm breath brush against the older girl's ear. Maybe let her hand wander a little further up Reagan's thigh than might be appropriate.

Normally, Amy would be enjoying this.

This? Isn't normally.

As much as Amy likes Reagan's hand on her thigh, as much reassurance as she takes from the one simple gesture, she knows it really isn't for her.

It's for Reagan.

It's Reagan making sure Amy's still there.

Because for a few minutes? Reagan didn't know if she was.

And Amy has no idea how to fix that.

She glances over at Theo and Lauren, the tiny blonde perched on her boyfriend's lap, her face buried in the crook of his neck.

Even muffled by Theo's shirt and skin, Amy can still heart her sister's quiet cries.

She starts to reach out a comforting hand to run along Lauren's arm, but she can't quite do it, she can't quite bring herself to remind Lauren that she's there.

Because Lauren has to hate her.

She  _has_ to.

Before tonight, Amy didn't realize she could feel as bad about hurting someone as she did about betraying Karma.

And then she hurt Reagan.

And as bad as both of those hurt, in many ways Amy feels even  _worse_  about Lauren.

Karma was one thing. They had history. The hurt between them had been a growing thing, more alive with every lie, every unintentional slight and misstep.

Hurting Karma had been a freight train Amy had boarded when she was six.

And Reagan?

Reagan had picked her, had made the choice to be with her, Karma drama and all.

But Lauren?

What was it Lauren had said to her the morning after the ill-fated sleepover?

_We're sisters now. And there's a code._

Amy still didn't know exactly what that code was. But she was pretty sure she'd violated it.

And  _that_  was killing her.

And when, exactly, had that happened? When had Lauren gone from being her sister by-accident-of-marriage to her sister to her  _sister_?

Her friend. Her  _family_.

Karma chose Amy before either of them was old enough to understand what that meant.

Reagan chose her too. Amy had known that from the first night sitting across from her at Planter's.

But until tonight?

Until Lauren had been the one to wade into hell and go toe-to-toe with Karma? Until she'd laid it all out there, calling Karma on every bit of shit she'd put Amy through?

Until she had stood her ground against Liam and the disapproving eyes of the Hester populace and done what Amy hadn't had the courage to do?

Amy didn't know how she hadn't seen it - though if tonight proved anything it was that she was just as oblivious as Karma - until tonight.

Lauren had chosen her too.

And look, Amy thought, what that got her.

_Did modern medicine finally turn you into a real girl?_

Amy had hated Liam before that, she knew she had.

But that? That moment? Those words?

She hadn't thought he was capable of that.

Drunk, hurt, heart broken? Amy knew all too well that those things didn't add up to anything good when it came to Liam.

But she never would have thought…

She'd made him pay. So had Reagan. Liam fucking Booker had gotten his ass handed to him by a pair of girls.

That was going to linger. That would follow him for a while.

But, Amy knew, in the end? It wouldn't matter. It would become another drunken party punchline.

Hell, knowing Liam, he'd turn it to his advantage.

They taught me a lesson, he'd say. I learned how wrong I was, he would tell whatever desperate, impressionable girl he'd sunk his hooks into.

In the end, Liam wouldn't pay. Not really.

But Lauren would.

Amy thought of how hard her sister had worked to keep her secret. Of how desperate she'd been - so much so that she had turned to Shane for help - when she thought Tommy was going to out her.

Lauren had done everything right. She'd stood up for her sister.

And doing everything right? Had ended with the secret she guarded so closely being stripped away with twelve little words.

_Are you still the same fucked up science project you've always been?_

Sometimes, Amy wondered, why the doing the right thing always turned out so wrong.

For Amy, it all kept coming back to the same thing, the same thought she'd had all night long.

It should have been me.

At first, that was just about dealing with Karma. Amy knew - had always known - that it should have been her that did that, right from the start.

And then it became about ending it. She had to be the one to finish things. It had to be her that left no doubt. Not for Reagan. Not for Karma.

But now? When it was all said and done?

It should have been me?

That was all about the pain.

No matter which way you spin it - and Amy's twirled it around in her head in every which way she can think of - it always comes down to the same thing.

It should have been her. She should have been the one hurting. She should have been the one to take the hit.

The  _hits_.

_All_  of them.

Karma. Reagan. Lauren. Shane. Theo.

They were all beaten. All battered. All hurting in some way.

Amy glances down at her hand, the one she started to reach out for Lauren with.

Bloody knuckles. Bruised skin.

But she can't even feel the sting anymore.

They took it all.

And she walked away. Relatively unscathed.

And no matter what, Amy's pretty sure she's just never going to be able to make that right.

 

* * *

 

 

Reagan brings Lightning to a stop in front of the house and she's barely killed the engine before Lauren is out the door, bolting for the safety of her home.

Theo stumbles as he tries to keep up, but Reagan could have told him that was pointless.

Nobody was going to catch Lauren tonight.

Reagan sees Farrah through the open front door, briefly talking to Theo.

She's no lip reader, but then she doesn't really have to be. Reagan knows the highlights Theo's laying out for.

Karma.

Liam.

A kiss.

A punch. More than one.

Karma. Again. And again.

Reagan can't help it. She'd love to be the better woman here, she really would. It would make this all so much easier if she could just take the high road.

But her legs don't have the strength to hike up there.

And so, she can't help it, can't help hoping she never has to hear the name Karma Ashcroft again.

She looks back at the front door in time to see Farrah staring out at her and Amy, sitting in the dark. The older woman nods once and then disappears into the house.

She leaves the door open.

And Reagan feels a sharp stabbing pain as she contemplates the obvious fucking metaphor.

Amy's here. She's in the truck, next to Reagan, and Reagan has one hand on her thigh.

She's here. She's really here.

The door is open.

But Reagan will be fucked if she knows if she can walk through it.

She hasn't taken her hand off Amy's thigh, neither of them has broken the contact since they lefts Shane's and that, Reagan figures, has to be something right?

A good sign.

A sign, at least.

Reagan can feel Amy's hand hovering over her's.

There's a part of her - a bigger part than Reagan would like to acknowledge right now - that wants nothing more than for Amy to lace their fingers together, to take Reagan's hand in hers.

But Amy doesn't do it.

And there's a part of Reagan - a bigger part than she would've believed could exist just a few hours ago - that's relieved.

They sit in silence, staring out the windshield, Reagan's hand still resting on Amy's leg.

Just yesterday, they sat just like this. Closer, even. Wrapped up in each other.

_I don't need a movie, Reagan. I just need you._

Reagan doesn't want to think about that.

_I love you too_.

She really, really doesn't want to.

Reagan doesn't want to think about yesterday.

She wants to think about tonight.

_Reagan…_

Thinking about yesterday? All that's going to do is make her get out of the truck, walk inside, help Amy and Theo and Farrah comfort Lauren, crawl into bed next to Amy and fall asleep in her arms.

Would that be so bad?

_Reagan…._

Yeah. That would be so bad.

 

* * *

 

 

It's Amy who finally breaks the silence.

"Are you… um… gonna come in?"

Amy can't even look at Reagan as she asks. Just yesterday, she sat right here and told Reagan she loved her.

Yesterday?

How's that song go?

_Yesterday seems so far away…_

It seems like months.

Everything about this is wrong. Everything about this is so far out of whack Amy can't even begin to put it all right in her head.

It's like her life has become someone else's story. And the chapters just keep getting dragged out, the pain and the hurt and the shit stretched and stretched and stretched until she can't even remember…

They were happy.

Things were good.

_So this is what it's like to be loved._

Yesterday.

It was just fucking yesterday.

Reagan opens the driver's side door and slips out, standing back to leave room for Amy to follow.

Amy looks at the older girl as she steps out onto the pavement, one hand resting on Lightning's door, the question obvious in her eyes.

"Make sure you shut it tight," Reagan says. "It's been sticking lately."

And with that, she walks away, heading up the path toward the house.

Amy closes the door, making sure it latches tight. 

 

* * *

 

 

Reagan makes it halfway up the walk before she stops.

Her eyes are locked on the front door.

It hardly seems the same to her.

It doesn't seem like the same door she walked out of this morning. On her way to coffee with Karma.

Not the one she and Amy slipped through yesterday, giddy with the joy of their first 'I love you's'.

Not even the one she stared at from behind Lightning's wheel that first night.

_I am fierce. I am badass._

She could say the motherfucking mantra a thousand times. It wouldn't make it any more true right now.

That first night, Reagan almost convinced herself to run. She almost convinced herself that it wasn't worth the risk.

That  _Amy_ wasn't worth the risk.

And for one month, three weeks, and however many fucking days, she's never once questioned the decision she made that night.

Until now.

Because now? She can't help wondering.

If she'd known that night? If  _that_ night, she had known about  _this_  night?

Would she have stayed?

The fact that she can't answer scares Reagan. Hurts her almost more than anything.

She can feel Amy behind her, not near her or next to her or right up on her like she usually would be.

At a distance. Like earlier, in the Planter's parking lot.

Every step either of them takes is tentative. Unsure.

You can't tell, Reagan thinks. You can't tell if it's solid ground or if that next step is gonna be the one that sends you off the cliff.

"Rea?"

There's a ripple of fear in Amy's voice and Reagan is reassured - slightly - by the urge that bubbles up inside her. The one that makes her want to take Amy into her arms and soothe her and tell her it'll all be OK.

Reagan would feel better if that urge was enough. Enough to move her. Enough to propel her over that shaky ground.

But she stays where she is.

"I almost left, you know."

Reagan says it softly, half hoping Amy won't hear her.

Amy doesn't answer. She can't say she knows because she didn't. She has no idea what happened when Reagan left Shane's or how she ended up back there.

Or why.

"I'm glad you didn't," Amy does say, finally.

Reagan knows.

She knows that isn't what Amy wants to say.

Amy wants to say 'I'm sorry.'

I was an idiot.

I fucked up.

Amy wants to say 'it was always you and I can't believe I ever let you think otherwise and if you forgive me I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you and I love you so much.'

_That's_  what Amy wants to say and Reagan knows it. Just like she knows Amy isn't saying all that out of respect for her.

She's letting Reagan have her moment. Her moment of doubt. Her moment of pain.

Amy's letting her have it because she knows Reagan needs it.

Amy knows  _her_.

And fuck all if that doesn't make it just a bit worse.

"I was halfway here," Reagan says, her eyes still trained on the door. "I was going to drop them off, make sure Lauren was OK, and then…"

Behind her, Amy bites her lips and wills the tears not to come.

Reagan shifts in place, her hand - the one she so desperately wants Amy to take - opens and closes at her side.

"I wanted to leave," she says. "I  _wanted_  to."

It's the first time she's admitted it, even to herself.

Amy can't hold back the whimper that slips from her lips and the tears aren't listening to her brain anymore as they spill down her face.

"Why didn't you?" she asks. It's the only safe thing - the only thing that isn't abject begging and pleading for forgiveness - that she can think to say.

Reagan stares at the door.

"You never said it."

She turns, finally, looking Amy dead in the eye, ignoring the pang of regret that flows through her when she sees her girlfriend's tears.

"You never said it was Karma," Reagan continues. "You never  _said_  you chose her. Yeah, you made me and everyone else  _think_  it, but you never  _said_ it."

Reagan takes one step toward Amy. Unsteady. Unsure.

But a step. One step toward bridging the gulf between them before it becomes an insurmountable ocean.

"I came back because you never said it," she says. "And because I believed you."

Amy blinks against the tears and takes one step of her own toward Reagan.

"Believed me?"

Reagan nods. "You said it would be me." She lowers her gaze, unable to keep the eye contact. "You said if you had to choose, it would be me."

She curses herself for the tears she can feel forming in her eyes. For not being fierce. For not being badass.

But not for her choice. Not for the choice she made that night.

Or the one she's making now.

Reagan looks back up at Amy and the blonde can see it all, right there in her eyes.

"You said it would be  _us_ ," Reagan says. "And I believed you. So I came back."

Amy closes the remaining distance between them in two quick steps and pulls Regan into her arms.

The older girl collapses against her. Sobbing. Shaking.

"I believed you."

Amy leans back, one finger under Reagan's chin, bringing her girlfriend's head up.

"I need to show you something," she says. "Will you come with me? Inside?"

Amy steps back and holds her bloody and bruised hand out to Reagan.

There's a moment. A long one - the longest ever it seems to Amy - before Reagan takes her hand and lets Amy lead her into the house.

And Reagan can't help wondering.

Is she moving to safety? Or will the next step be the one right off the cliff?

 

* * *

 

 

Amy leads Reagan through the door and into the living room, guiding her to the couch and steering her down onto one end of it.

Reagan glances around, a bit confused. This isn't… well…

She doesn't know what the fuck this is.

"You needed to show me your couch?"

Amy settles onto the cushion closest to Reagan, still holding her hand, and shakes her head.

"You remember yesterday?" she aks. "When you were explaining to me why we hadn't…"

"Had sex?" Reagan offers. She nods. "Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

Amy's grip on Reagan's hand tightens because she knows this next part is going to be the trick. If her girlfriend is going to bolt, this is the moment.

"You remember  _how_ you explained it?" she asks. "How you had to tell me about Shelby…"

Amy sees Reagan's eyes go dark and she knows the older girl has put it together. She's figured out where Amy's going with this, at least part of it.

And she's not happy.

"Seriously?" Reagan asks as she tries - unsuccessfully - to pull her hand away. "You have to show me something and it  _has_  to involve Karma?"

"I know," Amy says. "I get it. But please, just hear me out. Please?"

She grips Reagan's hand tightly, praying that this time, more than the last time, Reagan gets it..

"Please, Reagan."

Reagan nods, slowly, but her hand goes limp in Amy's grip.

She'll go along. For now.

Amy takes a deep breath and tries to figure out how to start. She hadn't thought this far ahead, which makes this about par for the course tonight, doesn't it?

She has no idea, no  _good_ idea, how to get to where she needs to be without starting off with the one thing she  _can't_  say.

But, since she's made a habit of saying things she can't say tonight…

"When I realized I loved Karma, there were cheers and confetti - literally," Amy says. "It was like there was this lightning bolt that struck me, this explosion in my brain I never saw coming."

Amy glances at Reagan, trying to gauge her reaction, but the older girl is staring down at the couch, totally unreadable.

"It was like it is in all those stupid rom-com movies Karma always made me watch," Amy continues. "this super dramatic cinematic moment, like the camera was zooming in on me and you could just see the 'oh shit' look in my eyes."

Reagan doesn't raise her eyes from the couch and Amy has no idea if she's even getting through, but she's come this far…

"I figured  _that_  was love," Amy says. "Not like I had a whole lot of experience and it fit the fairy tale, so...I just went with it. And I guessed that if that was how it happened once…

"That's how it would happen every time," Reagan finishes. "So every time we kissed, you were waiting for it. Waiting for the fireworks."

It's not just Amy who knows Reagan.

Amy smiles before she can stop herself, before her mind catches up to her heart and reminds her that she's not supposed to smile. "I didn't have to wait for  _those_ ," she says. "I saw the fourth of fucking July behind my eyes the first time you  _held my hand_."

There's a smirk tugging at the corner of Reagan's mouth and even if she quickly squashes it, Amy still sees it.

"It wasn't fireworks I was waiting for," Amy says. "It was an epiphany. When I kissed Karma in the gym, as confusing as it made some things, it brought so much into focus. I  _knew_."

Amy scoots a little closer, visibly relieved when Reagan doesn't pull away.

"You were right here," she says. "Talking to Lauren."

Reagan arches one still-unbelievably-on-point eyebrow.

Sensing that maybe she's starting to get somewhere, Amy keeps going. "I had a horrible day that day," she says. "I had an argument with Karma. Now, I don't even remember what it was about. Probably Liam. Or some other bullshit that covered the  _real_  reason."

Amy wonders, not for the first time, how long tonight really had been building. How long had it really been since she'd been able to look at Karma and see her friend and not months worth of pain for both of them?

"Whatever it was," she says, "we both ended up with detention. Which just made it worse, because I was supposed to be going out with you."

Reagan remembers. She remembers the day, remembers sitting on the couch waiting for Amy and talking to Lauren.

"Lolo was going on and on about her pageants," Reagan says. "I never knew anyone could talk that much about rhinestones."

Amy laughs and she's almost shocked that she still can.

"We were supposed to go to Planter's," Amy says. "But I was just so pissed. So angry at Karma and the detention and I'd had to see her and Liam making out…"

"I remember," Reagan says. "We ended up staying home and watching  _Carmilla_ episodes all night."

Amy nods. "But it was before that," she says.

"What was?"

Amy stands and moves around to the other side of the couch, as if she's just entering the room. "I came in right here," she says, "and there you were, sitting right there, talking to Lauren. And you looked up at me when I came in the room. And you smiled."

Before tonight, Reagan smiled every time she saw Amy. It was involuntary, really.

Amy drifts closer to the couch, reenacting that day. "I started to walk by," she says. "All pissed off and angsty and lost in my own head. And you reached out your hand." She looks down at Reagan, surprised to see the older girl actually looking back.

Surprised to see a light in her girlfriend's eyes. Dim. But there.

"You didn't even look at me," Amy says. "You just reached out and brushed…" She laughs a little. "Two fingers. You brushed two fingers against my hand."

Reagan turns on the couch, leaning her elbows against the back of it.

"Two fingers, Reagan," Amy says, "not a hug or a kiss, not even a word." Amy knees behind the couch, her long legs bringing her even with Reagan. "Two fingers, and it all went away. Karma. Liam. Detention. Conflict in the Middle East, the economic crisis, Lauren's rhinestone drama… it  _all_ went away."

Reagan reaches over the back of the couch and brushes her thumb along Amy's cheek, wiping away a tear.

"You made it all go away," Amy says. "And I knew."

"You knew what?"

"I was in love," Amy says. "With you. And it was different and new and not what I ever thought love was or could be. And there was no confetti or cheers or fireworks. It wasn't a rom-com moment. But it didn't matter. Not then. Not now."

Amy cups Reagan's cheeks in her hands, staring into her girlfriend's eyes and praying that this time she gets it.

"I don't need a movie, Reagan," she says. "All I need is you."

Amy presses one soft kiss to Reagan's lips and starts to pull away, waiting for Reagan to react.

She doesn't have to wait long.

Reagan's hand finds the back of Amy's neck and pulls her back into the kiss, their lips moving together silently as they taste their tears and each other.

And together, they step away from the edge. There's still things to be fixed, issues to be dealt with.

There's still pain to come.

But for tonight?

The ground is solid beneath their feet.


	24. Chapter 24

_**A/N: So, yeah, it's been a while. I updated other stories, but not this one. Sorry. Three jobs and a crazy semester kind of cut into writing time. But, hopefully, this will be a more regular thing now that my workload has been seriously cut back. And, in case anyone was wondering - still a Reamy story and not connected to the trailer for 2B (I handle that in 'Scenes'). Even if the show doesn't give us the Reamy we want... I can try.** _

Liam.

_Did modern medicine finally turn you into a real girl?_

Liam Booker.

_Are you still the same fucked up science project you've always been?_

Liam  _fucking_  Booker.

Of all people…

Lauren can admit it. She never saw it coming.

Not from Liam.

Not like this.

* * *

Lauren paces by the bench in the Hester courtyard.

Theo's late.

It's only five minutes, but Lauren's impatient. Her nerves are already on edge, knowing what she's about to do, and she doesn't need to wonder if Theo's been in an accident.

Or maybe he got arrested.

Or maybe Brandi finally got her hooks into him.

In which case he'd be better off in an accident or arrested.

_I need to talk to you._

_It's just… something I should have told you a while ago._

Yeah. Lauren has enough stress at the moment.

She needs Theo here.  _Now_.

Because a late Theo means an alone Lauren. And that means more time for her to think.

And right now? Thinking and Lauren is like combining oil and water, gasoline and a match, Laura and Danny - things that just should not be.

Thinking means reconsidering.

Lauren spent the entire drive to campus coming up with a million and one excuses for why she called Theo here. All the things she could tell him that  _wouldn't_ be what she  _needed_ to tell him.

_I'm moving to Ireland._

_My father is a raging racist and we can't see each other anymore._

_I've seen Reagan in her underwear one too many times and I'm switching teams._

(She'd settled on the last one. It was the most believable.)

Lauren knows she needs to tell him. She's hesitated, she's held off, she's basically lied to him.

(But it's only - really - a lie of omission and really, is it that bad?)

(Yes. Yes, it is.)

Theo has a right to know. Before this goes any further, before he develops feelings - the kind that come with more than just flirting and making out behind the library - and before she…

Before she sees him come running into the courtyard, before she sees the smile that spreads across his face at the sight of her, before she's swept up in his arms and his lips are on hers and oh, fuck, she doesn't care how many times she sees Reagan in her underwear.

With kisses like this? With a man like this?

She's never switching teams.

* * *

Theo's getting impatient. Lauren can tell.

The jiggling door handle. The knocks - gentle at first - then more persistent, almost to the point of banging his fist against the door.

The sound of his voice.

"Lauren, please. Please, baby. Open up. Let me in."

"Let me help."

Lauren doesn't open up. She doesn't let him in.

She's done just about enough of that recently. Opening up. Letting people in.

And look where that got her.

* * *

You know what sucks?

What really, really fucking sucks?

Being swept up in the arms of someone who may actually be the most perfect man in existence - at least for you - and thinking of Karma Ashcroft.

Yes, this is the shit that goes through Lauren's mind now. This is the hell she's found herself in.

Almost two months into dating Theo and though she hates it - really fucking  _hates_  it - Lauren's realized she's starting to be jealous of Karma.

Fuck.

Did she mention that she  _hated_  it?

It sucks and it's ridiculous and it makes her skin crawl, but being intersex and being in a relationship  _and_  not having told Theo…

It's given Lauren insight.

She's starting to understand what it must have been like to be Amy all that time she and Karma were faking it.

And that makes her see Karma in a whole new light.

(Which sucks, really, because she kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West light she'd always seen her in.)

There were very few things Lauren would ever even consider giving Karma credit for. But, she was coming to realize that in some ways…

Karma was relationship goals.

(And even thinking that makes Lauren sick to her stomach.)

(Knowing that it's true only makes it worse.)

Karma does the one thing that Lauren - and Amy - could never do.

She's honest.

(And yes, Lauren sees the irony. The faux lesbian being honest.)

But when it came to Amy, there was nothing - well,  _almost_  nothing - Karma would ever keep from her best friend.

The two of them spent every single day together. Like, really.

Lauren counted it up once.

Amy spends more time with Karma in one day than she does with Lauren in a week. And they  _live together._

All that time together, sharing everything.

Karma told Amy about her feelings for Liam. Karma told Amy when she and Liam almost fucked in Liam's car at Homecoming.

Karma told Amy about offering Liam a threesome.

Karma was open and honest to a fault.

That fault being that she never once saw what her honesty was doing to Amy.

Lauren knows that has a little - or more than a little - something to do with the way she's softened towards Amy, with the way she's come to think of Amy as her sister.

Lauren knows. She understands.

She knows exactly what it's like to love and want and need.

And to do it all while you're hiding. Not just something little, not just a tiny, miniscule, insignificant thing.

Hiding something primal, basic, funda-fucking-mental about who you are.

Amy can't change being gay any more than Lauren can change being intersex.

And as Theo finishes kissing her and sets her back down next to the bench, Lauren can't help but remember what happened to Amy when she finally let that secret loose.

Lauren is the Amy here.

And all she can do is hope that Theo?

He  _isn't_  Karma.

* * *

Ever since that night in the garage, since the second Tommy opened his fucking mouth, Lauren's known this was coming.

She's known this day was on its way.

She thought she was ready. She thought she was prepared.

She thought…

Well, it doesn't really matter what she thought.

She  _didn't_ think it would be Liam. She  _didn't_  think it would be because she stood up for Amy.

And no matter what Lauren  _thought_ , she was  _wrong_.

She wasn't ready. Not even fucking close.

* * *

Lauren guides Theo down to the bench and clutches his hand in hers.

Can he feel how sweaty her palms are? God, of course he  _can_. They're sweaty and clammy and practically fucking vibrating in time with her racing heart beat.

Which is all her own fault, she knows.

_She_  did this. Lauren let her heart - and her lips and her fingers and a few other assorted parts - get ahead of her. She let lust and those first few bits of infatuation and -  _maybe_  - more overwhelm her own better judgment.

Of course, if she'd listened to her own better judgment, she wouldn't be sitting here right now.

If Lauren had listened to her own better judgment, if she'd paid attention to her mind instead of her heart

(and, maybe, her libido)

she wouldn't be with Theo at all.

She certainly wouldn't be staring into his eyes right now, trying desperately to memorize every bit of them. She wouldn't be trying to commit the chiseled contours of his jawline to memory.

She wouldn't be wishing her hands weren't so fucing sweaty so she could actually  _feel_  his skin and thinking to herself that this might well be the last time she ever does that.

If Lauren had listened to her own better judgment - the one screaming at her weeks ago to get the fuck out while she still could - she wouldn't be so close to losing all the things she'd ever wanted and never really thought she could have.

But she hadn't listened.

And really, who could blame her?

All Lauren had wanted - the  _only_  fucking thing she'd ever really wanted - was to be normal, just for a little while.

A normal couple. Normal feelings. Normal issues.

Having a movie night and fighting over the remote.

Arguing over what toppings to get on their pizza.

(Though, admittedly, they'd probably argue more over whether to get pizza - and all those carbs - than over the toppings.)

(Lauren  _always_  got Meat Lover's. If you're gonna go, she figured, go big.)

She wanted to get jealous over the way Theo looked at some girl - (Brandi) - at school.

Lauren wanted to see the look on some girl's - (Brandi's) - face when Theo kissed her passionately to calm her jealousy.

That was all Lauren wanted. She'd wanted normal, or as close to it as she could get.

And Theo? Theo was the epitome of normal. He was so fucking normal it hurt her to look at him, made her eyes burn like she'd stared too long into the sun.

_That_ was what she wanted.

Not hormones. Not chromosomes. Not infertility and moods and overcompensation and all the other intersex shit she'd live with for so long.

So maybe Lauren took longer than she should have. Maybe she enjoyed normal just a bit more than was wise.

Maybe that was why her hands were so sweaty and shaking and her heart was racing.

Because her better judgment had finally won out.

And now?

Now she might be about to lose everything. And that terrified her.

Which, ironically, was completely normal.

* * *

Theo's not knocking anymore. He's not jiggling the handle. He's not talking.

But he's still there.

He's settled down outside Lauren's room, sitting on the floor, leaning back against the door.

Lauren can see his shadow, see the way his body blocks the light from the hall.

He's not trying anymore, not trying to get in, not trying to talk to her or soothe her or tell her everything's going to be OK.

But he's still there.

Lauren slips from her bed and pads over to the door, slowly sinking to the floor on her side, pressing her back against the wood.

He's still there.  _Still_.

That's got to count for something, she thinks.

Right?

* * *

It took Lauren weeks to get up the nerve to tell him.

It took a confrontation with Karma to finally make her do it. To finally make her call Theo and tell him that… well… that she had something to tell him.

And now, when she's got him here and she's got his hands in hers and she's staring into his eyes and offering up silent prayers to who or whatever might be listening, prayers that he's the man she thinks he is…

She's stammering. And stuttering. And beating around the bush and taking what amounts to the longest possible fucking route to what she has to say…

Lauren's never - outwardly - lacked confidence.

Until the time she needs it most.

And when she finally finds the words, when she finally finds the way to explain it

_I'm not like other girls_

well, Theo… he's Theo. He's a guy. He latches onto her words and takes them at face value and runs with them and goes straight - no pun intended - to what is clearly - to him - the most logical conclusion.

"Are you gay?"

And Lauren laughs.

Not just a little laugh, mind you. Not just a polite chuckle and a quick 'no, I'm not gay' correction.

She actually has to pull her hands away and cover her mouth and try - really fucking  _try_  - not to fall off the bench.

Of course, she thinks. It makes total sense.

Between Shane and Duke and Amy and Reagan

(and, given this morning's display of jealousy, quite possibly Karma)

Lauren knows there's something of a disproportionate percentage of gay in her life.

Why wouldn't Theo think that? Why wouldn't he jump to that conclusion?

And why, Lauren thinks, couldn't it be that?

Why couldn't she just be gay?

(And yes, she sees the irony of 'just gay'.)

But, strangely enough, that would be easier. Easier to explain. Easier to understand.

_Yes, I'm a lesbian._ Or  _yes, I'm bisexual_.

It would be simpler, she knows. Easier.

For her.

But it also wouldn't be true.

So Lauren shakes her head. "No," she says. "I'm not gay or bi or questioning or anything like that. Trust me. I'm totally, completely, all in on guys."

_I'm totally. Completely. All in on_ you _._

Theo nods. Lauren can see the relief in his eyes. And it kills her that she has to take that from him.

But really, she doesn't have a choice. She never has.

"What I am," she says,  _finally_ , "is intersex."

* * *

"Too many people knew," Lauren says softly.

It's the first thing she's said since she tore out of Theo's arms and raced into the house. Her throat is dry and her voice is hoarse after all the crying.

But Theo hears her.

"Tommy. Liam. Karma. Shane and Amy and Lizbeth and Leila," Lauren says. "And then Reagan and then…"

She trails off. Leaving the 'you' unsaid.

"Too many people knew," she says. "No secret is safe with that many people."

No secret is safe, Lauren thinks. Not with that many people.

No matter how much they might love you.

"I always figured it would be Tommy," she says. And she really did.

Incriminating dildo pics or not, Tommy was the one she always thought would out her.

"I mean, let's be real," she says. "Tommy's a dick.  _And_ he's stupid."

"Nothing worse than a stupid dick," Theo says through the door and Lauren smiles - just a little.

"Except a limp one," she says, the words slipping out before she even realizes she's speaking. "And poor Tommy… he had one of those too."

Lauren hears Theo bite back a laugh on the other side of the door and she has to blink back tears at the way the sound makes her heart swell.

She rests her head against the door and wishes…

Well… there's a long list of wishes tonight. A very long list.

"My money would've been on Shane," Theo says.

He wants to keep her talking. If she's talking, she's not crying.

"Harvey?" Lauren asks. "Really?"

Theo nods and Lauren can hear the soft bump-bump-bump of his head against the door.

"You don't think Shane could out someone?" he asks.

Karma. Amy. Probably Duke, sooner or later.

Yeah, Shane could out someone.

"But why?" she asks. "Why would he do it?"

Tommy has motive, reason, a grudge. Shane…

Shane had Shane. Which, really, is all he ever needs. For anything.

Shane never needs a reason for anything other than a total lack of impulse control and the firm belief that he knows what's best for everyone, every time.

Which, really, in Theo's mind comes down to one simple truth.

"He's a fucker," Theo says. Simple. Obvious.

Lauren coughs to cover her laugh.

She can't -  _won't_  - let herself be that normal. Not yet.

"True," she says. And she knows it is, even if thinking it makes her feel bad.

One thing she's come to realize about Shane is that he's always trying.

Trying to do the right thing. Trying to be better. Trying to help those he cares about.

_I don't think there's anything humiliating about what you told us…_

At heart, Lauren likes Shane - even if she'd never admit it - because he's hard  _not_ to like and, more importantly, he was Amy's shoulder to cry on long before Lauren would have ever considered offering hers.

But for all his 'trying', Shane hasn't managed to pull the wool over Lauren's eyes, not like he has for Amy. And he hasn't shamed Lauren like he has Karma or given Lauren's ego and sense of integrity and 'oh-so-tolerant' image a GBF boost like he has for Liam.

Lauren still sees Shane clearly, still sees him for exactly what he is underneath it all.

A fucker.

"He  _is_ a fucker," she says. "An absolute, 100% self-centered, would out his own mother and tell her it was for her own good if it benefited him  _fucker_."

Lauren stops there. She doesn't say the last little bit, even if she thinks it.

It takes one to know one.

So, yeah, Lauren guesses Shane might have been the one to do it, might have been the one to out her.

If he thought it was best for her. Or best for  _him._

"We're skipping the most obvious one, aren't we?" Theo asks.

Lauren doesnt' even have to wonder who he means.

Karma.

"She wouldn't…."

Lauren stops short, not because she can't believe she's defending Karma - though, to be honest, she  _can't_  - but because she's not sure.

This afternoon, when Karma threatened her outside the house, when she got all up in Lauren's face?

Lauren didn't buy it. Not for a second.

Yes, Karma's a bitch.

But there's a  _bitch_.

And there's unforgivable.

"You don't think so?" Theo asks. "Even after the way you shredded her tonight?"

And that's what cinches it for Lauren.  _That_  is exactly how she knows that, no matter what, Karma never would have been the one to do it.

Because she didn't.

Karma'd had motive. She'd had opportunity.

She could have destroyed Lauren, just like Liam did.

But she didn't.

"Karma wouldn't do it," Lauren says. And then, after considering a moment longer… "Not on purpose."

And that's it, really. That's Karma in a nutshell.

She'd never hurt anyone.

_On purpose_.

Karma, Lauren has come to realize, is like Tommy with a brain. Or Shane without the gay.

She doesn't always think. And she never met an impulse she  _wanted_  to control.

So sometimes - OK, a lot of times -

( _we could have a threesome_  jumps to mind)

Karma speaks without thinking. Karma  _acts_  without thinking.

Like a certain drunken kiss from earlier tonight.

And  _that_ , Lauren thinks, is even more proof that it never would have been Karma, that Karma never would have hurt  _her_.

Karma saves all her damage and destruction for Amy.

* * *

_I'm intersex._

Theo nods. Just nods.

And then keeps on nodding.

He doesn't blink. He doesn't tense. He doesn't try to move away from her on the bench.

Lauren's not surprised, not really, by any of that.

Theo wouldn't run. He wouldn't freak.

She knew that. Even before she told him.

(And, if part of the reason she knew that is because she figured he has  _no idea_  what intersex even means?)

(Well, that still wouldn't have stopped some people.)

What does surprise her - pleasantly - is everything else Theo doesn't do.

He doesn't try to take her in his arms. He doesn't try to console her or tell her everything will be OK.

He doesn't ask if there's a treatment or a cure or if he can catch it.

(That last one was the first thing Tommy asked.)

And maybe that too was because he really doesn't understand. He really doesn't know what it means.

Or maybe, just maybe - if Lauren lets herself be optimistic for once - it means he doesn't think there's anything wrong.

Nothing wrong with what she's said. Nothing wrong with being intersex.

Nothing wrong with her.

* * *

"Do you remember when you told me?"

Lauren rests her head against the door and stares up at the ceiling.

Remember?

Right now that memory is the only thing holding her together.

Especially since it was, you know,  _today_.

"I was so scared when you called me," Theo says. Lauren's never heard his voice like this, so soft, so deep, so…

worried.

"At first, I thought you were going to break up with me," he says. "I've been kinda expecting that for a while."

Lauren squeezes her eyes shut and clutches her hands together in her lap, afraid that if she doesn't hold onto them, she'll open the door.

And she's not ready.

She's just not… ready.

"I mean, really…" Theo stares at the floor of the Raudenfeld-Cooper hallway. "Why would  _you_  want to be with  _me_ , you know?"

Lauren can think of a thousand reasons. And any other time -  _any_  other time - she'd happily drop herself into Theo's lap and tell them to him.

Every one.

With a kiss in between each.

(And if some of those kisses lasted longer than others? If some of them turned from a kiss to kisses to… something else? If running down her list of a thousand and one reasons why she wants him ended up taking her days? Or weeks? Or, you know, forever?)

(Lauren would be OK with that.)

(And that just makes this worse.)

"But then you kissed me," Theo says, and Lauren can  _hear_  his smile. "And I kinda figured it wasn't a breakup." Theo laughs. "I always was a master of the obvious."

Brains. And a sense of humor. Those would both be high on Lauren's list.

(And those lips he kissed her with wouldn't be far behind.)

"And then…" he hesitates, afraid to say it. Afraid that it will make things worse or push Lauren deeper into the hole she's already dug.

Theo doesn't do afraid. His father's a cop and Theo knows he could die any day. His mother's a bus driver and spends her days on the road with every crazy driver in Austin.

And Theo doesn't bat an eye. He can watch scary movies, ride roller coasters, climb tall ladders, practice MMA, and he's even fired his dad's gun.

None of it fazes him. None of it scares him.

Not like the five-foot-nothing blonde whirlwind behind the door.

"And then," he finally manages, "I thought about the rumors. About the pills."

Lauren pushes herself up off the floor, pacing across the room towards her bed.

The rumors.

The pills.

Fucking Harvey.

"I mean, you know about my dad," Theo says. "And I thought maybe you were in trouble or something and needed help and…"

Lauren sits on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands and waits for him to finish.

"I would've done it, you know," he says finally. "Whatever you needed. I would have gone o my dad. Or I would've kicked somebody's ass or I would've.."

Theo trails off. He can't say it. He can't promise what he would have done.

Because he  _didn't_.

The tears start unbidden. He holds back a sob, not because it would be unmanly or weak or some other such bullshit - his mother's taught him far better than that - but because he doesn't deserve what he knows would come with it.

He doesn't deserve for that door to open. He doesn't deserve Lauren coming out and taking him in her arms and comforting him and holding him and loving him.

Theo doesn't deserve that. Not any of it.

Because he failed her.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, swiping at his cheeks with his sleeve. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you. I'm sorry Amy and Reagan had to… it should have been me."

Theo hears a whimper and looks up. Amy's leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs, her eyes filled with tears, and those words

_it should have been me_

Those words drop her to her knees.

And when Theo speaks again, he knows he's speaking for both of them.

"I'm sorry, Lauren. So fucking sorry."

* * *

"So… that's it?"

It's a simple question.

"That's what you had to tell me?"

It's  _so_  very simple.

Theo shrugs. "OK," he says. "You're different. You've got Androgyny.."

Lauren smiles. "Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome," she corrects. But there's no anger to her tone, no upset.

"Right.." Theo says. "That. And that's it? You're not going to grow a second head or start speaking in tongues or try to kill me in my sleep?"

"No, no, and only if you don't stop flirting with Brandi," Lauren replies.

"Got it," says Theo. "One question… "

Lauren braces herself. This was all going too well.

"Can we go grab something to eat? I'm starving and your call interrupted breakfast."

And that's it.

That's the moment.

It's that second that Lauren realizes it.

All she'd wanted was normal.

And this? This is being in love.

And that's about as normal as it gets.

* * *

_I'm sorry, Lauren._

The words echo through her mind and Lauren wants to scream.

_So fucking sorry._

She'd thought that moment with Liam, that moment when he'd called her a science project… she'd thought nothing could hurt worse than that.

And, yet again tonight, Lauren is reminded just how wrong she can be.

_It should have been me._

She heard Amy. Lauren heard her outside the door when Theo said it.

Fuck.

Fucking Booker. Fucking Harvey. And fucking Ashcroft and fucking Tommy and all the fucking rest.

_It should have been me._

Lauren moves before she has time to think, before she has time to second guess herself and reconsider. She jumps off the bed and goes to her laptop on the desk, logging into her email.

It takes her less than a minute to find the address she's looking for, less than thirty seconds to add on the other three in the CC box.

And that's when she freezes. That's when the fear and the realization of what she's about to do hits and her fingers lock up over the keys and she just…. can't.

There's silence in her room. And maybe, she'll think later, that's why she can hear it .

Why she can hear  _her._

_You find those people who know that different doesn't mean less._

_The ones that know that you're_ more.

_Not because you're different, but because you're_ you _._

_You find those people and you hold onto them._

_You love them and they will love you._

Lauren's fingers tap against the keys, knocking out the one message she never thought she'd send.

And when it's done, when it's been sent, when she hears the familiar tone of Theo's email alert ringing outside her door, Lauren settles down on the floor next to her bed.

Her mother told her what to do. Maybe not in so many words, maybe not with any understanding of what it really meant.

But she told her.

Lauren only wishes one thing. More than she wishes for normal or for Theo or for anything.

She just wishes her mother could be here now.

Because she's going to need her.


	25. Chapter 25

_**A/N:  Um... so this is  a little long.  And very ensemble.  But there's definitely a pretty significant Reamy bit so...** _

 

Lauren stays perfectly still in the middle of the bed. She pretends she doesn't see Amy leaning against the bathroom door.

If she doesn't see her, then she's not really there, right?

Not really there becomes a lot harder to pretense when Amy crawls onto the bed next to her - and just when the hell did  _that_  become something they did? - and shoves her cell phone into the smaller blonde's face.

"What. The. Fuck. Is. This?" Amy asks. She draws out every word and - just in case that's not enough emphasis - she shakes the phone with every syllable.

"A sign I should have remembered to lock the bathroom door?" Lauren asks without looking.

She doesn't have to look. She knows exactly what the fuck  _this_ is.

Her email.

The one that starts  _Dear Vashti._

She'd thought about the 'Dear' part. Wondered - briefly - if it was too informal.

But it was polite. Ladylike.

And if Lauren still has anything, it's her ability to be ladylike.

Though if Amy doesn't stop shoving that phone in her face pretty fucking quick, she's going to find out how un-ladylike Lauren can be.

Amy pushes the phone a little closer. "I'll ask again - "

"Please don't," Lauren cuts her off. She sits up, scooting out from under Amy's arm and off the bed. She stands in front of her dresser, her back to her sister and sees the bottle - her  _pills_  - just sitting there.

Out in the open. Where anyone could see them.

And Lauren remembers a time when that just wouldn't have happened.

Fuck that, she remembers a time when there wouldn't have been anyone in here to see them, a time when no one would have dared even cross the threshold.

Even after she and Amy became friends and then - eventually, slowly, in tiny baby steps - sisters, there was a time when Lauren would have never left them out.

Even after they all found out, even after that night in the garage when Tommy outed her.

(And is it totally unreasonable to hold that dipshit at least a little responsible for what happened tonight? He got the ball rolling, after all.)

(He told Booker.)

Even then, when they all knew, Lauren didn't…. knowing, she understood, was different than seeing. Knowing was different than having it right there, right in your face, right in the light of day.

And the sad thing was - the total honest fucking truth of it - was that Lauren had been living in the dark for so long, she wasn't even sure she could  _endure_ the light.

Maybe, she remembers thinking, it would burn her. Like a vampire.

Maybe coming out - sort of - would just make it worse. Maybe the light wouldn't save her or spare her or show her that she was just like everyone else.

Maybe, she remembers thinking, it would just burn her alive.

Or, maybe, as it turns out, it would just be simple.

Talking to Amy one morning while she leaned against the bathroom door.

(Apparently, something of a habit for her.)

Getting distracted by the conversation. Setting the pill bottle down on the dresser. Not even realizing she'd done it till later that night.

Maybe, as it turns out, it would be that one moment, seeing them there, cocking her head slightly at the realization of what she'd done.

And that the world - not even her little part of it - hadn't ended.

A 'huh'. A shrug. And then climbing into bed, going to sleep, and not thinking of it again.

Until now.

Which, Lauren figures, stands to reason.

It's been a whole night of 'until now'.

She hears Amy scramble off the bed and then the taller blonde is right up in her face and Lauren - not for the first time - misses that aura of 'don't fuck with me' badassery she had going on there for a while.

"Vashti?" Amy asks, waving the phone again and giving Lauren the urge to see what it might look like after ricocheting off her bedroom wall.

Amy slams the phone down on the dresser, knocking the pill bottle over in the process, and Lauren watches it roll slowly toward the edge.

"You can't be serious," Amy says. " _Vashti_? That's…"

"Nuts?" Lauren suggests as she reaches out and stops the bottle just short of tumbling to the floor. "Stupid? Ridiculous? Overreacting?"

Amy arches an eyebrow - silently wondering how Reagan does that so fucking well - and stares at her sister. "So you agree, then?" she asks. "You agree that this is the dumbest idea you've ever had?"

"I still think letting Harvey take those boudoir photos was dumber," Lauren says with a shrug and a little bit of a shudder. "But the boy did know his lighting.'

"This isn't funny, Lauren."

Lauren nods, like she needs Amy to remind her of just how un-funny any of this is. "Neither is taking a hot selfie to sext to your boyfriend," she says. "That's make or break kinda shit."

Amy snatches the bottle of pills from in front of her and holds it up between them.

"How long?" she asks. "How long did we live in the same house before I even knew you take these?"

Lauren stares at the bottle and says nothing.

She's pretty sure Amy isn't looking for an answer.

Amy doesn't stop. "How long was it - even after I found out - before I ever saw you with them. How long before I found out you kept them hidden in your top drawer right behind your thongs?"

Lauren bites back a comment on Amy knowing where she keeps her thongs.

"How long, Lauren? How  _fucking_  long?"

Lauren shrugs again and takes the bottle from Amy before settling back down on the edge of the bed. "If you've got a point, can you get to it?" she asks. "I"m tired."

"My point," Amy says, " is simple. It took you more than a year to tell  _me_. To let me in, to share this with me. Or with your minions or Reagan or Theo."

It took two and a half months with Theo, Lauren thinks, but Amy's point stands.

"You kept it in all that time," Amy says. "And now… because of  _Liam_ … you're going to tell the world."

"Don't be so dramatic," Lauren says, though she knows she's just being argumentative. "I'm telling Vashti, not the world."

"Same fucking thing and you know it," Amy says. She paces across the room. She came in here to make things better, not worse, and she needs to be calm to do that. "You know what telling Vashti means, Lauren. You remember what she did to me after the threesome."

The words ' _that was Karma'_  leap to Lauren's mind, but she keeps them to herself.

And since when does she skip a chance to take a shot at Ashcroft?

Personal growth can be something of a pain.

"You tell Vashti and you tell the school," Amy says. "All of them. And there's no taking that back."

Lauren's eyes grow wide. "Take it back?"

"Right now," Amy says, "the only people who know anything are the ones who were at the party. We can handle them. We can lie. We can cover for what Liam said -"

"You want me to hide," Lauren says, cutting Amy off.

And even the words hurt. And that only makes her more sure she's doing the right thing.

"Liam was drunk," Amy says. "He didn't know what he was saying. Hell, half the people there probably didn't even understand him. We could spin that. We really could."

Amy's right. Lauren knows she is.

"Vashti has enough material for the tumblr already," Amy says. "Me and Karma. Me and Reagan and Karma. Me and Reagan knocking Liam out."

Me. Me. Me.

_It should have been me._

"You got stuck in this because you were defending me." Amy says. "Lia, only went after you because of me."

Once upon a time, Lauren would have seen the logic in that. She would've let it override everything she knew to be true. She would've let herself blame and then hate Amy and never even thought twice.

Personal growth can be something of a good thing, too.

Amy sits down on the bed next to Lauren and the older girl can see the pain in her sister's eyes. "Please, Lolo," Amy says. "Please just let me handle this. Reagan and me and Theo. We can take care of it. We'll tell Vashti not to come And if she still does, you can stay up here. We'll deal with her."

You can stay up here.

You can hide.

_I can hide_.

It's tempting. So fucking tempting.

And that temptation? That split second when Lauren considers giving in?

That's all she needs to feel. All she needs to know.

Lauren reaches out and takes Amy's hand in hers and, for just a moment, Amy thinks she's won.

"No," Lauren says.

Simple. One word. One syllable.

But it really says it all.

"I'm not hiding, Amy," Lauren says. "I'm not letting you or Theo or Rea…"

She stands quickly, the movement so sudden that it shifts the bed and sends Amy tumbling to the floor. Lauren grabs her pills and then Amy's hand, helping her to her feet.

Lauren leads her sister to the door, slipping the lock back and pulling it open. Theo topples back into the room, thudding to the floor at her feet.

"Come on," Lauren says, stepping over him and into the hall. "Find Reagan and Farrah and meet me downstairs."

"I'm only saying this once."

* * *

When it comes right down to it, it shouldn't surprise her. Not really.

It does make a certain kind of logical sense - or at least ironic sense - in it's own way.

Farrah really shouldn't be all that shocked that the daughter that  _isn't_ hers - biologically, at least - is actually the one that's just like her.

But, as she stands and listens to Lauren lay the law down to her sister and her best friend and her boyfriend - as she explains exactly why she emailed Vashti and exactly why she's going to 'out' herself - Farrah  _is_ surprised.

By the echoes.

The echoes of her own life. Her own decisions.

Of the way she once realized it wasn't 'have to'.

It was 'want to.'

Farrah learned long ago - probably from the first day she met her - that Lauren was smarter than anyone gave her credit for. And she's seeing the proof of that playing out in front of her.

The way Lauren keeps saying it, over and over.

"I have to."

She keeps hammering the point home. Because Lauren knows. She's smart and she gets it.

'Have to' is the the only thing the other three will understand.

Even if it isn't the truth.

Farrah knows that all too well. She used 'have to' before.

For Farrah, it happens the day Jack leaves. The day he walks out on his family and disappears.

He leaves her. But he doesn't just  _leave_  her.

He leaves her with a giant fucking mess she has to clean up.

Which, really, shouldn't surprise her because cleaning up after Jack has, by that point, become Farrah's full-time job.

But this was different. This wasn't just their marriage. This wasn't just their family. It wasn't just her.

It wasn't just Amy.

Jack walks out on everyone. On Farrah and his daughter. On his mother. His brother. His sisters.

Jack packs up and buries his whole fucking life somewhere behind him, never to look back.

And it falls to Farrah to fix it all.

For months before he left, Farrah spends nearly every waking moment trying to do exactly that - trying to fix it all.

She tries - against her own better judgment and the advice of, well, everyone - to piece it all back together, the massive jigsaw puzzle their lives had become.

She's been a bit desperate. She's been a bit frantic.

Farrah has, in truth, become every horrible, bitchy, condescending thing Jack has ever accused her of being.

You try fixing a life. See if you don't get a bit touchy.

Farrah tries, so very hard, to find a way for the all the pieces of this puzzle to fit together. She knows, in her heart if not her head, that it won't ever be perfect.

There was going to be the odd edge piece missing.

There were going to be pieces that - no matter what they were supposed to do - wouldn't fit quite right.

Every puzzle has those.

The defects. The misfit toys. The ones that are meant to go together, the ones that were  _made_  for each other.

But still don't work.

And if that isn't a metaphor for her life, Farrah isn't sure what is.

And then Jack leaves and it's like he kicks the table over, sending the pieces flying in every which way. And, try as she might, Farrah can't seem to find them all.

Because it can't be.

It can't be made better.

It can't be smoothed over.

It can't be fixed.

Her husband, the father of her child, the man she thought she would spend her life with?

He just fucking left.

_Left._

And, in her weaker moments, Farrah can't help imagining him out there. Living it up. Drinking his sorrows - assuming he has any - away. Spending his time the way he wants.

Making his 'art'.

Fucking and drinking and laughing.

No kid raising, no wife nagging, no family depending.

It  _can't_ be fixed, but Farrah still tries.

Because, she says, she has to.

Which is why, when the phone rings at seven-thirty in the morning, a week after Jack leaves, Farrah answers it.

She's terrified, just the way she has been every time she's answered the phone for the last seven days.

Afraid it's the cops. Afraid it's the hospital. Afraid someone's found him. Dead. Or just wishing he was.

But, let's be real.

She's been dreading that call a lot longer than the last week.

So when she answers the phone and, instead of an officer or a nurse, it's Jack's mother?

Farrah can be forgiven for considering - longer than she should - hanging the fuck up.

Jack's mother hates her. (The feeling is entirely mutual.)

Hell, Jack's mother hates  _Jack._

( _That_  might be the only thing the two women have in common.)

The only member of the family Jack's mother can even tolerate is Amy and - Farrah suspects - she only does that to piss Farrah and Jack off.

So, yeah. Farrah can hang up. Or she could yell into the phone, telling the old bitch that her son has finally lived up to his genetics and run out on his family.

She can - and she  _really_  considers - telling Mama Raudenfeld that when  _that_  call does come?

(And even years later, Farrah's still somewhat surprised it never did.)

When that call does come, the old witch can haul her sorry ass down to the morgue and identify her son's body all on her own.

Farrah can do that. Any of it. All of that.

And it would be fair, it would be fine. Half the reason Jack is the man he's become is the old woman on the other end of the line.

She can do that. But she doesn't.

Instead, she tries.

She tells the truth. She tells Jack's mother exactly what's happened.

She tells her how close Jack came to crossing that line.

The same line his father had crossed every day for a dozen years.

Farrah tells her mother-in-law exactly what her son's face looked like when he saw himself in the mirror. When he saw his own fist drawn back. When he sat the anger and the hate in his own eyes.

When he saw his wife cowering in fear.

Farrah tells her mother-in-law exactly how she watched Jack break. How the anger and hate had faded from his eyes, but the life - the  _love_  - she'd always seen there, even at his worst, never returned.

"That," Farrah says, "is when I knew I'd lost him."

And that, Farrah thinks, is the moment when she knew he would never come back.

Farrah waits. She listens to her mother-in-law's soft breathing on the other end of the line.

She waits. And tries.

God does she try.

She tries not to say it. Not to do it.

For years afterward, Farrah will always say exactly what Lauren's saying to Theo, Amy, and Reagan.

That she  _had_ to.

But that - just like what Lauren's claiming - was just so much bullshit.

In the end, Farrah doesn't  _have_ to.

But she wants to. She so fucking wants to.

Farrah's tired of living like this. She's tired of living with the specter of Jack's family and his past and all the shit that bred in him.

Jack had, for better or worse, tried to shield her and Amy from his family in every way he could.

But the shield just fucking walked out.

And so maybe Farrah doesn't have to do it.

But maybe - no, not  _maybe_  - she wants to. And maybe she needs to.

And so she does.

"Jack's gone," she says. "He left. He abandoned me and his daughter like the coward that he is."

She pauses. And then…

"Like the weak as hell fucking coward you raised him to be."

She's answered by only silence.

"He's a coward," Farrah says, "because he didn't stay. He didn't try. But, coward or not, he's still a damn fucking sight better than you."

She should stop. She knows she should.

She doesn't.

"Even in his cowardice, he still did what his father never could. He stopped. And he saved his family. And if you haven't heard from him in the  _week_ , he's been gone?"

Farrah knows these will be the last words she ever says to the woman she was supposed to call 'mom'.

"Then I guess he saved himself too."

The phone clatters to the ground as Farrah tries to slam it down, but she doesn't care. She doesn't notice the sound of her mother-in-law calling out to her.

Or maybe she does. And she just doesn't care.

She doesn't  _have_  to.

And four years later, when Jack's mother - who doesn't see her granddaughter even once in those four years - finally dies in her sleep?

Farrah doesn't even send flowers. And Jack doesn't come to the funeral.

So, maybe, all these years later, Farrah is the one who gets it. The one who hears the truth in Lauren's words.

Farrah is the one who understands when the best friend, the sister, and the boyfriend just don't.

Just  _can't_.

"Lauren, please," Amy says, and in sixteen years, Farrah's never once heard that tone in Amy's voice. The pleading. The need.

She's pretty sure her daughter's just about three seconds away from dropping to her knees in a full on beg.

"You don't have to do this," Reagan says.

"There's other ways, baby," Theo chimes in.

(And, on a totally unrelated note, that's the moment Farrah realizes how much Lauren loves Theo. He calls her  _baby_. And there's no bloodshed.)

"No," Lauren says. "There is no other way."

Farrah hears it, even if no one else does. She hears what's there in her step-daughter's tone.

And what isn't.

There's no anger. There's no pain, no sadness, not even resignation.

Lauren sounds like Farrah did, all those years ago.

She's not doing this because she  _has_  to.

Lauren's smart enough to know they could lie. That there's a thousand stories they could spin, and probably ninety-five percent of them are more believable than the truth.

Liam was drunk. And the ramblings of a drunken teenage boy could easily be explained away.

He was angry. He was bitter.

He was pissed at being someone's second choice, someone's consolation prize.

He couldn't hurt Amy - though he tried - so he went after the next best target.

They could make that work.

So, no, Lauren doesn't  _have_  to confess to Vashti. She doesn't have to tell the whole school who she really is.

But - Farrah knows - she  _wants_ to.

"Tonight, Liam Booker used my most personal secret like a fucking shovel," Lauren says. "He tried to bury me with it, he tried to make shut up and back down and  _nobody_  does that."

Farrah can't keep a small proud smile from crossing her lips as the young blonde eyes everyone else in the room.

"Nobody makes me back down," Lauren says. "And nobody is shaming me into silence. Nobody is going to push me and think for even one second that I won't push back. Nobody -"

"Puts baby in a corner," Reagan mutters and Farrah almost laughs at the way Lauren has to literally bite her lip to keep from smiling.

"I'm not asking permission," Lauren continues. "I didn't send you the email for you to try and change my mind  _or_  for your blessing."

"Then why?" Amy asks.

"Because when I tell Vashti and she tells… everyone…" Lauren looks at each of them. "It doesn't just affect me," she says. "Not anymore."

The boyfriend.

The best friend.

The  _sister_.

Farrah wonders, not for the first time, how truly fucking amazing Lauren's mother must have been to have given birth to the spectacular young woman standing before her.

"How you deal with, how you handle it is your call," Lauren says softly. "But nobody will ever use who or what I am against me again. Not ever again."

She turns and heads for the stairs, stopping at the bottom to rest a hand on Amy's shoulder and turn back to the four of them.

"I'm telling Vashti in the morning," she says. "What y'all do… that's up to you."

* * *

For Theo, it all becomes so clear so fast, he's surprised he never saw it before.

Lauren has her secrets. There are things she doesn't tell people. He knew that all along, even before she told him.

He was fine with it. He was fine with what she told him. He was fine with her secrets.

It's not like he doesn't have one or two of his own.

There's a reason Theo didn't punch Liam. There's a reason that even if Reagan and Amy hadn't gotten to him first, Theo probably still wouldn't have dropped him.

Theo's a lot of things. But a hypocrite isn't one of them.

Theo is fourteen when it happens. When, like Pablo always used to say, he chooses to feed the bad wolf.

He's fourteen when he has to make a choice, one not unlike the choice Liam has years later.

Be a man. Take it, take the pain, keep your head up and be a decent fucking human being.

Theo is fourteen when, like Liam does years later, he chooses the  _other_ path.

Her name is Etta. She's sixteen and his math tutor because while fourteen year old Theo is already six-foot-one and a beast on the basketball court?

He's a fucking uncoordinated shrimp of a guy when it comes to math.

And, unfortunately, when it comes to the ladies as well.

Fourteen-year-old Theo lacks a certain subtlety. So, Etta picks up on his crush right away.

She's smart. She's funny. She's gorgeous and pure in that innocent way that only a sixteen-year-old girl can make work. And she has - to quote one of Theo's older teammates - an ass you just want to sink your teeth into and never let go.

Of course Theo has a crush on her.

It doesn't hurt that she's the only girl who ever talks to him.

Lauren would be shocked to hear that, stunned that the perfect specimen of man that she gets to stare at whenever she wants ever had trouble with women.

But fourteen-year-old Theo is not half as smooth as seventeen-year-old Theo will be.

He's also not half as ripped or half as graceful.

Worst of all? Fourteen-year-old Theo isn't half the man he will one day be.

And that's the problem.

At seventeen - almost eighteen - Theo will sit outside Lauren's bedroom and wait for her, as long as it takes and would never even think of doing to a woman - to  _anyone_  - what Liam did.

And maybe, if you look at it just right, that's why Theo becomes the  _man_  he does.

Because they boy he is at fourteen is such an incredible, monumental, abject fuck-up.

It happens a month into tutoring, when Theo's crush has reached the 'I would dive thousand of feet below the sea and retrieve a mystical evil fighting blade for you' levels.

And as romantic as that might sound? Etta has had just about enough.

Enough of what Theo considers subtle advances.

Enough of the hand on the knee. Enough of the accidental brushes up against her. Enough of the constant staring at her chest.

Enough, Etta decides, is enough.

She lets him down easy. She tells him it's the age thing. Girls mature faster than boys, she says.

Sure, she's only two years older. But in high school? For a guy and a girl? Two years is a lifetime.

Theo nods. Theo seems appropriately chagrined. Theo seems to get it.

Theo - at fourteen - is a big a fuckboy as Liam Booker will ever aspire to be.

He watches as Etta gets picked up by a boy - a  _man_  of eighteen. He watches as she hops into this 'man's' jeep and curls up against him, kissing him in a way Theo's only ever seen in movies, and watches - letting his imagination run wild - as her hands drift down out of view.

They're probably just holding hands.

Or Etta's resting her hands on his leg or the seats.

Or she's tugged him free from the confines of jeans and her head will be bobbing up and down in his lap before they're even off Theo's street.

At fourteen, Theo is living proof that there is nothing as wild as the imagination of a horny young boy with way too much access to the Internet.

As they pull away, Theo is livid though he can't quite process why. Is it the rejection? The rejection for an older man - one with as great an age disparity as Etta just claimed when she gunned him down?

Is it the crushing destruction of his first love?

Or is it fucking hormones and ego and pent up sexual frustration?

Or, maybe - as Theo at seventeen might agree - Theo at fourteen is just a fucking dick.

Seventeen, almost eighteen-year-old Theo will one day know the answer.

He'll know that the answer is, simply, that it doesn't matter. Because any answer is an excuse, a rationalization, a way to make himself feel better for what he does next.

Because all fourteen-year-old Theo cares about is the pain in his chest. The way watching Etta drive off feels, the way it hurts, the way it burns and makes him feel just like all the older guys on the team make him feel.

Fucking worthless.

So fourteen-year-old Theo does what he thinks is reasonable. He steals Etta's cell phone the next time she comes over to tutor him. He steals it and finds the less than appropriate pictures she has hidden away on it.

The selfie in nothing but her bra.

The shot of her ass in the mirror, wearing a thong so tiny it's nothing but a string being swallowed by her ass.

The one that was clearly taken by someone else - a certain jeep driving motherfucker, perhaps? - with Etta on her knees, staring up at the camera seductively.

Older Theo would see how whoever took that one must have thought it was the hottest thing ever. But older Theo would see the look in Etta's eyes. The desperate, can't believe I'm doing this, but I have to if I want to make him happy fear-pain-shame rolling around behind her eyes.

Older Theo would beat the shit out the supposed 'man' who took that pic.

Fourteen-year-old Theo can hardly keep himself from disappearing into the bathroom with the picture and a bottle of lotion.

_That_  Theo emails the pics to himself and returns Etta's phone to her, the young girl none the wiser.

She won't know - or even suspect - a thing until two days later. Not until she walks into school to find those pictures - printed out and blown up - scattered all along the hallways, a collage of the taped around her locker.

The same locker with 'SLUT' and 'WHORE' spraypainted on it in bright red and blue letters.

School colors.

It is, really, the almost perfect crime. Theo, truthfully, almost gets away with it.

Except for Abbie.

She's fifteen and she has a crush too.

A crush on popularity. A crush on rising up through the social ranks. She wants to be Queen Bee someday. She wants to be Regina George.

And Theo is her ticket,

Abbie is smart. Smart enough to know where Theo is headed. She knows he'll grow into himself, that he'll become the man - the kind of man who will wait outside a bedroom door for as long as it takes - that will win the hearts and minds of everyone he meets.

And this is her chance. Witnessing Theo's crime - and there's really no other word for it - is her chance to get in on the ground floor.

Imagine, she tells Theo once, that you could have been a part of Facebook, right at the beginning. Imagine where your life would be.

So, fifteen-year-old Abbie does what  _she_ thinks is reasonable.

She blackmails Theo. She makes him date her and take her places and buy her things and, for all intents and purposes, be her bitch.

And Theo goes along with it, partly because Abbie's not bad to look at and it makes some of the other guys on the team jealous.

But mostly? Mostly it's because even fourteen-year-old Theo figures out very quickly just how horrifically he's fucked up.

Because the school? It doesn't turn on Etta. It doesn't shame her or shun her or make her pay for that burning pain in Theo's chest.

It embraces her. It loves her. It vows to find and punish the fuckboy - because everyone  _knows_  it's a boy - who did this horrible thing.

And even at fourteen, Theo is smart enough to recognize that being found out as that fuckboy would end him.

It doesn't matter how big he is. It doesn't matter how good he was or will be at basketball or how model level his good looks and eight-pack abs will be.

All that matters are those words.

Slut.

Whore.

He'd meant to damn her. He'd meant to condemn her.

She wouldn't fuck him. So he tried to make her pay.

And all he really did was fuck himself.

So Theo goes along with Abbie's every demand. And enjoys the perks of being a couple.

At least in public.

Because when they're alone?

Abbie makes no bones about it - Theo is hers.

Hers to play with.

Hers to cuckold.

Hers to use for her own ends and to destroy if and when she feels like it.

She has the power. She knows his secret and she holds it over him, a metaphorical gun to his head.

And Theo goes along with it.

Right up until the moment when Etta congratulates him on passing math. Right up until that moment when she hugs him and thanks him for being her friend, even after she broke his heart.

It's in that moment when fourteen-year-old Theo figures out the lesson that seventeen-year-old Theo will remember as Lauren lays down the law about Vashti.

Because he sees Abbie watching him and Etta in the hall. And he knows, he sees the jealousy and the anger dancing across her face.

And he knows she won't blow up his spot. She won't rat him out. Not if it means losing her position.

But someday? Some day, there will be a better position. There will be a better, faster, stronger, more popular fuckboy for Abbie to ride to the top.

And if getting to  _him_  means burning Theo alive?

Abbie won't think twice. She won't think  _once_.

"I'm sorry," fourteen-year-old Theo says softly, almost whispering into Etta's ear. "I'm so sorry. It was me. The pictures. The locker. I'm so -"

The slap shuts him up. It shuts him up and attracts everyone's attention and within an hour - less than that, really - everyone knows the truth.

Theo's family moves out of the district a month later.

And the two most lasting memories seventeen-year-old Theo has of that place?

The look on Abbie's face as her meal ticket crashed and burned in front of him.

And the lesson his father, the cop, taught him after Theo explained it all, including the blackmail.

The same lesson he realizes tonight that Lauren's learned all on her own.

You want to keep someone from pointing a gun at your head?

Don't let them have any bullets to shoot.

* * *

Reagan knows that no matter how long she stares, no matter how long she stands there and lets her eyes drift over the pictures dotting the walls of the Raudenfeld-Cooper living room, they're never going to change.

They'all always be the same.

Amy. Her friends. Her family.

Amy.  _Karma._

Family.

She can let her mind play back over everything that happened tonight. She can remember it - all of it, not just the painful parts - and she can know.

Amy said it.

_I choose._

_I choose Reagan_.

Amy picked her. She - not Karma - is Amy's girlfriend.

But the pictures aren't about girlfriends.

They're about  _family_.

Reagan's never been real sure about that last word, she's not sure she's ever really understood it.

Since the day her mother left, she's not even sure she's had one.

Yeah, there's her dad. And her brother.

And they're related. And they love each other. And she would die for either of them as they would for her.

But family?

She has them, her father and Glen. But having them and knowing -  _knowing_  - that they could leave at any moment…

Like her mother. Like Lauren's mom, in a way.

Like Amy's dad.

For Reagan,  _that's_  what family does.

It leaves.

And now, this little makeshift family that she's made - her and Amy and Lolo and Shane and Theo - this little family is breaking.

And it terrifies her. Because she doesn't know if it can ever be put back together, not the way it was.

So Reagan looks at the pictures. She stares at the moments of Amy's life that she'll never know and she tries to convince herself that there won't be another her.

That someday someone else won't be standing in this same spot, looking at pictures from now, from next week, from a month from now, and wondering the same fucking thing.

And who is she kidding, really?

She's not worried about someone else.

She's worried about family.

Karma.

Reagan stares at the one picture, the one Farrah pointed out to her that night. The one with Jack's arm just barely in the shot. The one where he's holding his daughter, looking for all the world like he'll never let go.

But he did.

Everybody does. Reagan  _knows_  that. It might be the one thing she's certain of.

And tonight didn't do much to convince her differently.

_I choose Reagan_

Those are the only words that matter.

Correction: those are the only words that  _should_  matter.

And Reagan wishes - God, how she wishes - that they really were.

But there were the other words. The ones from Liam. The ones from Karma.

Even now, the ones from Lolo.

Reagan doesn't want Lauren's secret for herself. And she gets why Lauren wants to tell the truth.

But it's one more crack. It's one more thing that her little family had that will be gone.

And every little crack?

It just makes all those other words ring so much louder in her head.

Makes them almost deafening in her heart.

And Reagan isn't even a little bit sure how she's going to stop hearing them.

"I wonder sometimes," Farrah says softly, slipping up behind her, "how much different things would have been if Jack had stayed."

Reagan finds her eyes drifting to that picture again. To that little bit of him, the only part of Amy's father she's ever seen or probably ever will see.

She wonders, just for a second, how much you can tell about someone from just their arm.

The grip should tell you something, right? The way Jack wraps his arm around Amy, holding her so tightly, like she's leaning out over the edge of a steep-drop fucking cliff instead of a birthday cake.

Amy holds  _her_  like that. Whether it's wrapping her arms around her or even clutching her hand.

In Amy's grasp, Reagan feels like she's wrapped up in the softest, smoothest, strongest and most perfect steel ever forged.

She feels invulnerable. Like nothing can ever hurt her.

And every time - every  _fucking_  time - that scares her a little more.

Because Reagan knows.

Safety is family.

And family… well…

"Do you think it would have been different?" she asks Farrah, and she really doesn't know what answer she wants to hear.

Farrah shrugs lightly and Reagan can just see the movement out of the corner of her eye.

"I think," she says, "that it would have been different for Amy. Jack would've handled some… things… better than I did."

Reagan doesn't have to ask.

Things.

Karma. Amy coming out. Amy's heartbreak.

Tonight.

"I think you've done a pretty good job," Reagan says. She can't pull her eyes from the photo, but she reaches out, blindly, and takes Farrah's hand.

Amy's mother squeezes the younger girl's fingers tightly. "Thank you," she says. "But we both know that's just so much bullshit."

Reagan arches an eyebrow at the language - she's never heard Farrah say so much as 'damn' before - but says nothing.

"I've messed up with Amy more than I've succeeded," Farrah continues. "And that's just the truth. Recent events notwithstanding."

And even Farrah wants to call herself on her own bullshit there. Because recent events?

One daughter comes home sobbing hysterically and locks herself in her room. The other one looking like she's just wrapping up a three day heroin bender and bleeding all over the couch.

Recent events aren't winning Farrah any mother of the year honors.

"From everything you and Amy have said about her father," Reagan says, "I doubt he'd have done much better."

Maybe, Reagan thinks, he would have just kept holding on. Too tightly.

Recent events aren't exactly going to put Farrah in the running for mother of the year.

"From everything you and Amy have said about her father," Reagan says, "I doubt he'd have done much better."

Maybe, Reagan thinks, he would have just kept holding on. Too tightly.

Or maybe he would've just pulled Amy right down with him.

"Jack was a good father," Farrah says. "A lousy husband and a bit of a shit as a human being, but a good father."

_I'm leaving because of you_

Reagan has her doubts about the good father.

"I've been meaning to talk to you, you know," Farrah says. "About your family."

And there's that word again.

_You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means._

Amy's father was family. Once. Reagan's mother was family. Once.

Karma was family.

Farrah lets go of Reagan's hand and moves closer to the pictures. She tilts one slightly, adjusting it just so.

"I understand from Amy that it's just you and your dad and your brother, right?"

Reagan nods. It's been years of people describing her family like that and it still makes her feel like her mother's dead and not just living across town.

"Well," says Farrah, "this week is Thanksgiving. And it just so happens that it's our year to host."

Reagan nods, again, cause she's got nothing else to do being as lost as she is right now.

Farrah adjusts another picture, running a finger along the top of the frame and frowning at the dust she collects.

"I was wondering… well…  _hoping_ , really," she says, turning back to face Reagan, "that you and your family would come to dinner. On Thanksgiving, I mean."

"What?"

Reagan doesn't want or mean to sound rude. Or ungrateful. Or anything like that. So she tries again.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but…  _what_?"

Farrah laughs lightly and the sound of it - so much like Amy when she giggles at something and thinks no one is watching her - does something to Reagan's heart.

Something that's almost enough to drown those other words out.

"Theo didn't tell me much about what happened tonight," Farrah says and if the change of subject throws Reagan, she doesn't show it. "Just that there was something with that Booker boy and Karma and some punches…"

Farrah trails off for a moment and stares back at the picture.

Jack's hand isn't visible.

The scraped and bruised knuckles - some from punching a wall, some from a bar fight - are hidden out of the shot.

Like father, like daughter, it would seem.

"I know whatever it was, it put a strain on you and Amy," she says, finally. "I could see that even without Theo."

Reagan shuffles in place, eyes cast down to the floor.

Those words in her heart are getting louder by the second.

"I don't want to know the rest," Farrah says and this time Reagan can't hide the surprise on her face. "I don't want to know something I can't 'un-know', something I can't forget."

_Reagan…_

The younger girl gets that idea. Really, she does.

Farrah glances back at the pictures, eyes drifting from one shot to another, so many with Karma and Amy together.

And then, it's like she's read Reagan's mind.

"Karma is Amy's family," Farrah says. "And whether it's tomorrow or a week from now or next year… someday Karma Ashcroft is going to come walking up to my front door and she and Amy will be thick as thieves and best friends all over again."

Deafening. Those words in her heart are absolutely fucking deafening.

Farrah looks at Reagan, staring into the younger girl's eyes. "I know that scares you," she says. "But it's a  _fact_ , Reagan. As sure as the sun will rise and someday we'll all die."

Reagan doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to feel.

Farrah steps closer and takes both Reagan's hands. "But Amy's here. Now. Tonight," she says. "Do you understand what that means?"

_I choose_

_I choose Reagan_

Reagan nods, slowly.

"Before tonight, I never would have imagined Amy ever walking away from Karma for any reason, certainly not by her own choice."

For someone who doesn't know what happened, Farrah certainly  _knows._

"Amy's never been good at letting people in," Farrah says. "She's always afraid they're going to leave."

Reagan doesn't wonder why. Not even a little.

"And I know… well… I'm  _guessing_ , you've got a bit of that fear in you too, Reagan," Farrah says. "And you can spend the rest of your life waiting. Waiting for the moment Karma comes skipping back into Amy's world. Waiting for the moment Amy leaves."

Reagan's pretty sure that's exactly what she's going to do. But she doesn't want to. "Or…?"

Farrah smiles and for the first time in a very long time - longer than she'd like to think about - Reagan, for just a split second, doesn't miss her mom.

"Or you can remember," Farrah says. "You can remember that Amy's here, now. That it's you she wants. You she let in."

Reagan blinks back tears and wonders - not for the first time - if her mother is as good with her other kids as Farrah is with two girls that aren't even really hers.

"Amy forgives Karma every time," Farrah says, "because she never leaves. And no one else has ever done that for her. So, you can wait and worry. Or you can bring your dad and brother to Thanksgiving to meet the rest of the family."

Farrah pulls Reagan to her, wrapping the younger girl up in her arms.

And, for Reagan, it's that same perfect, comforting, loving steel.

"Come to dinner," Farrah says. "And show Amy. Show her you're not going anywhere. And you can take away the only weapon Karma has left. And even when she comes back…"

Reagan gets it.

Even when Karma comes back - and she surely will - she won't be coming back to just Amy.

She'll be coming back to family.

_Their_ family.

* * *

There are, in truth, a lot of things that Amy does well.

She's a hell of a friend. Loyal. Trustworthy. Caring.

Just ask Karma.

There's very little she won't do for someone she cares about. She'll listen. She'll fight. She'll fake being a lesbian.

Just ask Karma.

She forgives, sometimes even when she shouldn't. She tries not to hold a grudge. She accepts apologies with ease.

Juast ask…

Yeah. You get it.

So, OK. Maybe most of the things Amy does well are Karma related. But that stands to reason - most of Amy's  _life_ has been Karma related.

Until tonight.

But even before tonight, even before - as Amy thinks of it - she broke her best friend in fucking half, Amy knows she's been branching out. She's been trying, really hard.

(and she means  _really_  hard. Not just her usual half assed 'Amy' version of hard.)

She's been trying so hard to find things she does well that have nothing to do with Karma.

Before tonight, she had a list.

She was a good sister. Maybe not great, not yet, but she was getting there.

She was making new friends. Theo. Duke. That woman at the pharmacy who sold her the morning after pill and always says 'hi' to her every time she goes in there.

And then there's Farrah. Maybe there still not going to be winning any 'mommy and me' contests. But they can talk. They can laugh.

It's been at least a month since Amy wondered if Farrah really loves her.

Progress.

And, of course, she can't forget Reagan.

Talk about branching out. Talk about finding things you do well.

Amy's pretty sure - or she was before tonight - that the thing she does best in this world is love that girl.

She can kiss her and she knows she does it well. She can feel Reagan's heart race. She can hear Reagan's moans.

She can make her laugh. Even when it's something as simple as Amy not knowing some new and trendy thing girls her age are supposed to know in their DNA.

(Like Amy was supposed to know 'on fleek' was a thing.)

(Seriously. 'Fleek'? Really?)

She can, every once in a while, find a way to make Reagan swoon.

_I don't need a movie, Reagan. I just need you._

And the best part? Amy doesn't have to  _try_  for any of it. It comes natural It's like breathing or finding the best documentary on Netflix or hating Liam.

She doesn't have to think about it. She doesn't have to remember to do it or work at it.

It comes naturally.

Or it did.

Until tonight.

Amy gets the feeling that if she ever thinks about it - really sits down and considers it all - she'll find herself saying 'until tonight' a lot.

She can run down  _that_  list in her head.

Emotionally devastated sister? Check.

Going off on her other best friend for every single tiny thing he's ever done that pissed her off even a little? Check.

Punching her best friend's boyfriend? Check.

And… double check.

She hit the fuckboy twice.

(so, maybe the night wasn't a total loss.)

And, of course, let's not forget the highlight of the night, Amy's moment of crowning glory.

Accidentally making her girlfriend - that one she loves so easily - think that she'd broken up with her.

For Karma.

In front of half the school.

Including a somewhat - OK, more than  _somewhat_  - gloating Karma.

Check. Check. And check.

Amy's been branching out. But tonight she feels more like the tree just fucking landed on her.

And maybe  _that's_  why - more than anything else - Amy doesn't want Lauren to do this. Why she so desperately wants her sister to email Vashti and tell her the whole thing was a big misunderstanding.

Amy wants one win tonight. She wants one check in the success column.

She wants - more than anything - to protect Lauren.

The way Lauren tried to protect her.

The way she did  _try_  to protect Lauren. Even if it was a little too late. A little too after the fact.

A little less protection and a lot more revenge.

Amy knows she had her chance, knows that the opportunity was there.

She could have stepped between them. She could have cut Liam off before he opened his fuckboy mouth. She could have punched the words 'science project' right back down his throat.

Could have.  _Could_  have.

If she could have stopped looking at Karma. And thinking about Karma. And dealing with Karma.

Seems like even Amy's failures have everything to do with Karma.

And she knows Lauren won't say it And Theo won't say it - even if that is out of  _his_  guilt, more than a lack of hers - and even Reagan won't say it.

But Amy can feel it. She can feel it radiating off all of them like they're all mini-Chernobyls, all scorched Earth that she ruined in just one night.

Amy knows the truth. She failed. She failed in epic fashion.

And for all the things she does well, if there's one thing Amy  _doesn't_  do well at all - like not even a little - it's failure.

Especially when it's failing the ones she loves.

_I'm leaving because of you._

Wonder where she gets that from...

So now it's like three in the morning and she's just sitting in the hall staring at Lauren's locked bedroom door.

(She tried the bathroom a couple hours ago. Twice. Locked.)

(Lauren learned.)

Theo's gone to bed in the guest room, refusing to leave - thought it was mostly a plaintive begging kind of refusal, the kind Farrah couldn't help but whip out pillows and blankets for - and Amy suspects (or maybe just hopes) that he's still going to try and talk Lauren out of it in the morning.

Farrah's out too. She padded by Amy about an hour ago. She told her not to stay up too late.

"It'll be OK," she said, running one hand gently over Amy's shoulder.

Amy knows that's a load of crap and she's pretty sure Farrah does too.

Though she does appreciate the effort.

But Amy doesn't really think she believes in OK anymore. She used to. Really, she did.

And then she watched Lauren crumple in Theo's arms. She watched the strongest woman she's ever known break like a China doll.

And she watched Liam hit the floor like he'd been shot. And Karma break so badly she had to lean on Shane -  _Shane_  - for support.

And then there was Reagan.

_Reagan…_

Amy's pretty sure she has all the reasons in the world for not believing in OK anymore.

She doesn't even know where Reagan is. Amy thought they were better. She thought they'd at least established that they were still a 'they.'

That together, they'd stepped away from the edge.

Except then, right after Lauren laid it all out for them, Reagan had talked to Farrah. And Amy has no idea what they said, but she knows it made Reagan cry and then disappear outside for a few minutes and then…

And then nothing. Amy hasn't seen her since.

Amy knows she should go and find her. She knows she should go downstairs and find Reagan wherever the hell she is and get it out of her.

What did Farrah say? Why was she crying? Why is she avoiding her?

Are they going to be OK?

Amy knows she should stop staring at the door and go and find her girlfriend.

But, honestly?

She's not sure she can handle on more failure tonight.

So when Reagan appears at the top of the stairs, the overnight bag she always keeps in her truck sling over her shoulder, Amy can't help it.

The tears come. And Amy doesn't think they're ever gonna stop.

She can't see through the blurry watercolor mess that is her vision, but Amy hears the bag hit the floor and Reagan's quick steps across the hall and then Amy is in her arms and Reagan's whispering softly in her ear.

Amy can 't hear any of it. She can't hear a single word her girlfriend is saying. But even the feel of Reagan's breath against her ear and the soft murmur of her voice is enough.

Just enough to make Amy wonder if she might be able to believe in OK again after all.

* * *

Reagan can feel it. She can feel the desperation racing through Amy's body like blood pumping from her heart.

It's in the sobs. The way the tears just won't stop coming. The way Amy's hiccuping them out against Reagan's shoulder.

It's like every bit of this night, every bit of the pain and the fear and the fucking rage, is just tumbling out of her.

And Reagan knows. It's not  _just_  tonight.

It's in the way Amy's hands are clutching at her, bunching the fabric of her shirt between her fingers and then Amy's tugging at it, pulling it free of the jeans and her hands are under the shirt, ghosting across Reagan's skin and the older girl shudders beneath Amy's touch.

And then it's Amy pulling away. Her hands flying out from under the shirt and fumbling in her lap. Her lips muttering 'sorry. sorry.' through the sobs.

She thinks she did wrong. Reagan can see it in the way Amy won't look at her. The way she's staring down at her hands like she wishes she could burn them off.

Amy thinks she's lost the right. The right to touch Reagan. To feel her. To let her hands roam and wander and explore.

Reagan can't believe she didn't see it before.

Amy thinks - no matter what they said in the living room - that she's lost her.

And that?

Well, that's one step too fucking far. That's one last thing this night is threatening to take and Reagan's just not fucking having  _that_.

She stands, holding out both her hands for Amy, grateful when the blonde finally takes them and lets Reagan pull her to her feet.

Reagan's seen enough wounded animals - and enough wounded people - to know that look in Amy's eyes.

She's waiting. Waiting for the shoe. The bomb. The hammer to fall.

So Reagan drops the other shoe.

She kisses her. Slowly. Deeply. Reagan lets her lips speak the words her voice can't seem to find.

_I love you._

_I love you._

She pulls back for a moment, letting herself gaze into Amy's eyes, checking. Is the fear still there? Is she still scared.

Yes. And yes.

It's fading. But it's there.

Reagan tips her head against Amy's, letting their foreheads rest against each other, even as she reaches behind the younger girl and turns the knob, slowly opening the door to Amy's room.

She takes both of Amy's hands - again - and leads her into the room, kicking the door shut behind them. Reagan drops the blonde's hands for a moment, just long enough to lock the door.

"Reagan?"

The older girl doesn't respond, not with words. She cups Amy's cheeks in her hands and presses a soft kiss to her girlfriend's lips. And then another. And another.

Reagan lets her tongue dance along Amy's lips, slowly tracing the curves and ridges and the feel of them - the feel she's come to know so well.

She's memorized them. She's kissed them so often and for so long that she knows every single inch of Amy's lips. Knows the spots the drive Amy mad, the spots that make her open up and let Reagan in.

Reagan feels Amy tremble in her arms and that - that one simple sensation - elicits a moan from the older girl, one that rumbles up through her throat and vibrates across Amy's lips.

And Reagan's suddenly aware of Amy's hands on her hips. Pulling her closer, pulling the flush.

And there's another moan - or something a little closer to a growl - and Reagan can feel Amy smile into the kiss. A little one. A smirk.

Reagan breaks the kiss and leans back, arching one brow at her girlfriend.

"You like that, don't you?" she aks. "You like knowing what you do to me."

Amy says nothing. But her hands tighten on Reagan's hips, pulling her closer. Impossibly close.

And Reagan moans again as their hips collide and Amy smirks again.

Sometimes, Reagan realizes, she can be a cocky little shit.

The older girl pulls her hips back, creating just enough separation to reach down to the button of her own jeans, to pop it loose and slide the zipper down.

"You want to know?" she asks Amy, the husk in her voice betraying her own excitement. "You  _really_  wanna know what you do to me?"

Amy can only nod as Reagan takes her hand and slowly - so  _fucking_ slowly - guides it inside her jeans, pressing Amy's fingers against the outside of her panties - already so soaked they may as well not even be there.

It's a first for them. They've been naked together, but only in the faint light of one small lamp. Hands have wandered, but only for the briefest of touches, never lingering, never really feeling.

It's a first. And when Amy pulls her hand free, when she tugs it out from between Reagan's legs, the dark haired girl thinks -  _fears_  - maybe she's gone too far, too fast.

But when Amy returns the hand -  _immediately_  - this time  _inside_  Reagan;s underwear, two fingers gliding through her folds?

OK. Maybe not too far. And definitely not too fast.

Reagan feels her knees buckle as Amy brushes her fingers against her clit - and  _holy fuck_  if two fingers just doing that is enough to buckle her, Reagan knows she's in trouble.

"I do that?" Amy asks, her fingers exploring and roaming and the unexpected touches are driving Reagan up the fucking wall. " _I_ do that to  _you_?"

Normally, Reagan finds Amy's innocence and lack of confidence kind of adorable. Right now?

Right now she doesn't fucking care. Not as long as Amy never stops touching her like that.

"You've made me wet every time I've ever seen you," Reagan says, truthfully - something about the way Amy keeps 'accidentally' finding her clit makes it impossible for her to lie.

"Every time?" Amy asks and Reagan can't help wondering if the blonde has even realized the way her  _other_  hand is pressing down on the outside of her own jeans, rubbing small circles, almost mimicking the way she's moving against Reagan's wetness.

"Every. Fucking. Time." Reagan breathes. The words come out in hitched gasps as Amy has decided to focus almost exclusively on her clit, flicking it gently with her thumb before rubbing it slow, deliberate circles.

"The first time I saw you," Reagan says, her hands finding the waist of Amy's jeans. "At Booker's party. I wanted to pin you up against the wall of that storage room and kiss you for like three, four days."

Amy's eyes widen and Reagan isn't sure if it's her words or the hand she's slipped between the blonde's legs that do it.

"And then at the rave," she says. "You in that dress, getting all flirty with me."

Reagan slides two fingers through Amy's folds, teasing them against her girlfriend's entrance.

"I didn't want to kiss you then," she says.

"No?" Amy gasps out the word as Reagan lets her thumb brush against her clit - turnabout is fair play after all - and the blonde can't help the way her hips buck at her girlfriend's touch.

Reagan leans forward, her cheek presses against Amy's as she whispers into the younger girl's ear.

"Nope," she says. "I wanted to  _fuck_  you. Kind of like this." Reagan punctuates the thought by slowly sliding one finger inside Amy, using her free arm to brace her now slightly wobbly on her feet girlfriend.

"Though," Reagan says as she curls that one finger inside Amy, bringing a whimper from her girlfriend's throat, "I really would have preferred to do it with my tongue."

And that does it. That breaks the dam. Amy pulls her hand free and uses both of them to pull at the hem of Reagan's shirt and then push at the waistband of her jeans and then to cup her face and pull her in for a kiss that.. well…

Reagan's heard about those small orgasms. The 'little deaths'. She's never really believed in them.

Until now.

She tugs her own hand free and guides Amy closer to the bed, pushing her back onto it. Amy stares at up at her from the mattress, watching as Reagan pulls her top off and then her bra, both of them ending up somewhere scattered on Amy's floor.

Amy can't get her jeans off fast enough. She can barely control her shaking hands as she pulls her shirt off and unclasps her bra.

She's not sure if she's that turned on

(OK, she knows she's  _past_  being that turned on)

or if she's trying to go fast to avoid the shyness, the insecurity that she knows will settle in any moment.

Staring at Reagan's body doesn't help.

Her girlfriend, Amy quickly decides now that she can really  _see_  her, is a fucking goddess.

And then the worry does come. The fear. The feeling of inadequacy. How can she measure up? Why would someone like Reagan want someone like her?

Reagan sees it. She knows it. She reaches out with her hand, tucking a finger under Amy's chin and tilting the blonde's head back so they can look in each other's eyes.

And - just as Reagan hoped - Amy sees it. She sees the lust, the raw fucking naked need, in Reagan's eyes.

Amy may not understand it. She may  _never_ understand it.

But she can't deny it.

Reagan wants her.

Reagan  _wants her_. In the worst fucking way.

Amy sits up, reaching for Reagan, but the older girl pushes her back down onto the bed, gently guiding her to the edge of the mattress, her ass resting against the edge and her legs dangling to floor.

Even as inexperienced as she is, the sight of Reagan dropping to her knees between her legs is a pretty big tip off for Amy. She knows what's coming. And she only has one concern.

"What about you?" she asks.

Reagan knows there will be time - so much fucking time - for Amy to learn about mutual pleasure and returning the favor.

That's not what this is about.

Reagan leans in, resting her head on Amy's thigh as her eyes dart back and forth between Amy's face and the dripping wet feast before her.

"Not tonight," Reagan says. The heat of her breath against Amy's skin sends a shiver up the blonde's spine.

Reagan drops fully to her knees, her hands slipping under Amy, cupping her ass and lifting the blonde to her waiting mouth.

"Tonight?" Reagan asks, her eyes staring up at Amy's face.

"Tonight," she says again, emphasizing the word with one long slow lick from the bottom of Amy's pussy to the top.

"Is." Another lick. Longer. Slower.

"Just." A flick of her tongue against Amy's clit, her hands tightening their grip on the blonde's ass, holding her steady.

"For." She sucks Amy's clit between her lips, flicking her tongue against it before letting it pop free again and letting her tongues slide lower.

"You."

And as her tongue finds its way inside Amy, truly tasting her for the first time, Reagan knows she might have just lied a little.

Because this? It isn't just for Amy.

It's for  _them_.

* * *

It's Amy who answers the door in the morning.

Vashti seems surprised. She's probably a bit shocked Amy's there. After last night, it would have been no surprise at all if Amy had hidden herself away for the next week. Or month.

How long till graduation again?

Truth is, Amy is going to hide. Just a bit.

_How do you feel about camping?_

It wasn't what she'd expected for 'pillow talk' after her first time - and yes, Amy is  _so_  considering  _that_  her first time and Liam Booker and his tiny penis can go fuck themselves - but when Reagan had explained…

A camp. The only thing her father had asked for in the divorce. Small. Intimate.

The perfect place to hide away for a couple days until the big Thanksgiving meet and greet.

Reagan had already OK'd it with her father.

(That's where she disappeared to outside after talking to Farrah. Making the call.)

And Amy has a feeling - call it a hunch - that Farrah will give her blessing too.

(And that will have nothing to do with Amy making it quite clear she's going no matter what Farrah says.)

(Three days and two nights alone with Reagan? After  _last night_?)

(Nothing would stop that.)

But Vashti wouldn't know about that, she wouldn't know that Amy isn't running.

At least not running  _away_.

"Amy, um, hello," Vashti stammers. And if Amy's slightly amused by the sight of the might tumblr queen of Hester stumbling over her words?

Well, that's only fair.

"I didn't know you'd be here," Vashti says, pulling herself together.

"I  _live_  here," Amy says.

"I think she means she didn't know you'd be here,  _now_ ," Lauren says from behind Amy. And the way she says it makes it quite clear that Vashti isn't the only one who's surprised by that development.

Truth be told, Amy's a little surprised herself.

Blame it on Reagan. Blame it on pillow talk.

_You know what you have to do, right? You know what you have to do when Vashti comes in the morning?_

At the moment, Amy had nodded. Mostly because - honestly - she couldn't think of anyone else 'coming' anywhere, ever.

She thought she'd pretty much cornered the market on  _that_.

Cause, you know, seven times  _is_  a lot, right?

(Even if the first three came in rapid fire succession, rolling over each other until Amy thought she might die.)

(And she'd have been totally fine with that.)

But, the more she'd thought about it, laying there in Reagan's arms for the rest of the night, Amy knew her girlfriend was right.

She did know what she had to do.

So when she turns to look at Lauren, Amy's confident. She knows what she's doing.

But then she sees Lauren standing there on the bottom step, and Amy has to blink a couple times, just to make sure she's not having some kind of 'just got your brains fucked out' hallucination.

Lauren Cooper, the high priestess of the church of the perfect outfit, is standing there, awaiting her moment in the press, in a basic navy blue hoodie, her hair pulled up haphazardly into something Amy thinks is supposed to be a bun.

But it's not the hoodie. It's not the hair.

It's neither of those, though either alone  _should_  do it.

But, honestly?

It's the sweats.

The  _bacon_ sweats.

Lauren Cooper is wearing Amy's bacon sweats and - seemingly - is perfectly at peace with it.

Amy wants to say something. She  _should_  say  _something_.

But she sees the look on Lauren's face. And if the hoodie and the hair and the  _bacon sweats_  weren't odd enough…

That look on Lauren's face is.

Amy's only seen it once before. That night in the garage.

_Why would I tell anyone my girlfriend's a dude?_

Lauren's afraid.

And for a moment - a long fucking moment - Amy considers going back on her decision. She could still tell Vashti to leave. She could still slam the door in the girl's face and slide the deadbolt into place and hide Lauren away under a blanket fort in the living room.

But Amy knows what's really going on. Try as she might not to, she  _did_  hear Lauren last night.

She knows it's not Vashti her sister is afraid of.

_What y'all do is up to you_.

"I'm here," Amy says, her voice as confident and resolute as she can make it, "to support my sister."

"Step-sister," Vashti corrects. Always accurate. Always precise.

"My  _sister_ ," Amy says, fixing Vashti with a simple glare

(An 'I knocked Liam Booker the fuck out so fuck with me at your own peril' glare. )

has decided it's time for everyone to know who she really is."

Lauren steps to the door, next to Amy and the taller girl smiles down at her.

"And that's  _her_ decision," Amy says. "But I want to go on the record too. There's something I want to make crystal clear to  _all_  of Hester."

"What's that?" Vashti asks, her iPhone already out and - Amy's sure - recording away.

"That whatever and whoever Lauren Cooper is," Amy says, "she is  _not_ alone. Not now. Not ever."

"And," Reagan's voice echoes out of the kitchen as she steps into view. "She is loved."

"More than she'll ever know."

They all turn to find Theo standing at the bottom of the stairs.

Lauren looks at them, each of them in turn, and - for just a second - she considers telling Vashti to fuck off. She doesn't, because she meant what she said. She'll never let anyone use her secret against her again.

But that?

That only barely matters anymore. Because as she leaps into Theo's arms, so fucking grateful for the man he became and as she sees her best friend pull her sister close and knows - cause it's so fucking obvious - that they're "closer" than ever…

Lauren knows.

The rest of Hester be damned.

She has everything and everyone she needs right here.

Her family.


	26. Chapter 26

The first time Reagan met Farrah

_You must be Amy's mom. I'm Reagan. And may I just say, you have a_ lovely  _home_

was awkward.

Which put it at least one step ahead of the the first time Amy met Reagan's father.

Reagan and Farrah had been awkward. Amy and Martin was… painful. Like bodily injury painful.

The first time Amy met Reagan's brother, Glenn, was much smoother. Much simpler.

Glenn had three questions.

"You really a lesbian?"

Amy had nodded yes, which she would realize later, was really the first time she'd ever actually said it out loud.

Even if she didn't really  _say_ anything.

"You know about Shelby?"

Amy had nodded again. Reagan was in the other room, right on the edge of her little kitchen and her living room and Amy could see her over Glenn's shoulder. She saw the way her girlfriend's whole body tensed at the question. Saw the way Reagan's eyes squeezed shut.

"I was in Afghanistan," Glenn said - that part  _not_ a question. "I can kill a man with my pinky. Or my big toe. Keep that in mind," he said, "if you've got any thoughts of 'phasing' my little sister."

Amy nodded. And then… "I thought you had three questions?"

It was Glenn's turn to nod. "Oh, right. Almost forgot," he said. "You got any single friends that are like, even half as hot as you?"

Glenn was very lucky Reagan couldn't kill a man with her pinky.

Meeting Glenn had been easy. He might have been older, but he was, at heart, an even bigger kid than Reagan or Amy. He reminded Amy a lot of Karma in a way. All innocent and hopeful. Except for every once in a while, for just a moment, Amy would catch glimpses of it. Of what had happened to him over there.

It was in the eyes. And it was there for just a moment - never more than a second or two - and then Glenn was Glenn again and joking about his toes the lethal weapons and questioning Amy if her sister

(he'd heard  _all_  about Lolo)

was really serious about this Theo guy and asking Reagan if she'd introduced Amy to 'dad' yet.

And there was the elephant in the room. Again.

Because Amy had been asking the same thing. Repeatedly. Day after day.

So maybe she and Reagan had only been together a little more than a month. It had still been weeks since Reagan met Farrah, and Amy was convinced she was ready.

If, by ready, she meant absolutely terrified.

Amy wanted to meet Martin. She wanted to meet the man who had coined the 'motherfucking mantra', the man who had convinced Reagan to get the hell out of her truck and ring the Raudenfeld-Cooper's doorbell. She wanted to meet the man who had done what her father couldn't.

The man who had stayed.

But as much as she wanted to meet Martin, she wanted even more for that meeting to be perfect. Amy didn't want any slip-ups. She didn't want any embarrassing moments. She, in short, wanted her first meeting with Reagan's father to be everything her first meeting with Reagan  _hadn't_  been.

Amy remembered it well. Locked in a storage room. Scarfing down shrimp at an alarming - and possibly  _insane_  - rate. Pretending to be Liam's possibly knocked up girlfriend who set off the Booker family armageddon.

(Amy felt less and less guilty for  _that_  by the day.)

And those were just the things Amy could - oddly enough - predict and avoid.

(She totally had a 'do not do' checklist of post-it notes on her mannequin.)

(It started with not eating shellfish and ended with not being pregnant. Not even fake pregnant.)

But there were - in Amy's mind at least - a thousand and one  _other_  things that could go wrong.

There were the basics. Like what if Martin didn't like her?

Amy knew herself well enough to know that she could be something of an acquired taste. And that she typically sucked in social situations and resorted to snark and sarcasm and what if Martin didn't appreciate snark? What if he was one of those people

(those assholes)

who didn't find sarcasm to be a particularly charming trait?

(Do not do sarcasm.)

(Check.)

Then there were the slightly more thought out objections.

Like her age.

"I'm sixteen," she said to Shane - as if he'd forgotten. "What if he thinks I'm too immature for her? What if thinks I'm just some dumb little high school girl going through her college lesbian phase a little early?"

Shane - as was his GBF duty - had done his best to reassure her. He reminded Amy that - despite her general apathy toward anything that wasn't doughnut, Reagan, or Netflix related - she was one of the smartest girls he knew.

He told her that not  _every_  girl went through a lesbian phase in college.

(only the smart ones)

"And, most importantly," Shane said, "Reagan's not a phase."

He paused. Longer than he should have.

And spoke again. When he really shouldn't have.

"Right?"

Amy glared at him - the same glare she'd give him a few weeks later when he accidentally outed Reamy to Karma - but it was too late. As was usual with Shane, his attempts at making things better had only made them worse.

If Shane wondered - if her  _other_  best friend actually fucking wondered, and let's face it, if he didn't wonder, he wouldn't have asked - then how could Amy know Martin wouldn't wonder too?

And  _that_  brought up Amy's biggest worry of them all. The one with a name.

Shelby.

* * *

Amy had never met Shelby - not  _yet_  - but she loomed over her relationship like a fucking cloud, a cloud which, judging from the pictures Amy had seen on Reagan's Facebook

(Reagan didn't believe in 'delete'. "You should never try to erase your past," she said, "that's just erasing  _you_.")

was fucking  _hot_. All curly hair and big boobs and tight abs and God, if Amy hadn't hated the bitch, she so would have wanted to fuck her.

It wasn't that Amy was jealous

(OK. It wasn't  _just_  that)

she knew Reagan was over Shelby. Amy knew that  _her_  girlfriend had no lingering feelings for her  _ex_ -girlfriend. Amy had no doubts about that which should have made it all so much easier.

Except it didn't.

Because no matter what she  _knew_ , Amy still couldn't help but  _feel_  that she was still living in the other girl - and her relationship's - shadow.

Which, Amy guessed, was probably not unlike the way Reagan felt about Karma.

Yeah. Like  _that_  little epiphany made anything better.

What really didn't make it better, what  _actively_  made it worse, was the way - all the  _ways_  - Amy felt like Reagan was holding back. The way she kept putting off Amy meeting Martin. The way she kept slowing things down when Amy  _thought_  she was giving her all the signs in the world that she wanted to speed them up.

In Amy's mind, it was simple.

(Which should have been her first clue that it  _wasn't_.)

In her head, Amy was convinced that Reagan was afraid. Afraid of the same thing she was. That Martin - who had never been Shelby's biggest fan and had seen through her right from the start - would see right through Amy too.

And it wasn't like she hadn't provided him with plenty of reasons to look.

"You haven't told him, right?"

It became Amy's standard refrain every time her meeting Martin came up.

"You haven't told him, right?" she would ask. "You know… about me and Karma."

Reagan reassured her - every damn time - that no, she hadn't mentioned anything about Karma to her father.

They may not have been afraid of  _exactly_ the same thing, but Reagan wasn't stupid enough to hand her father a gold-plated invitation to be suspicious of her new girlfriend.

"And even if I had," Reagan said - every damn time - "he wouldn't care."

It was a lie. A little one. A slight… exaggeration.

"My father wouldn't care," Reagan said, "not if he knew the whole story. Not if he knew how much I… care about you."

They were still a ways away from Reagan's impromptu 'I love you' in the Hester hallway, but even Amy caught the pause before 'care.' Even she got the idea that - for Reagan at least - this was something serious, something real.

_That_  was the only thing that kept Amy going. It was her reminder, the one thing she fell back on whenever she worried. It might not have been those three little words, but it definitely told Amy that she wasn't in this alone.

This wasn't Karma all over again.

And she tried, really she did. Amy tried so hard to show Reagan that even if she couldn't say the words yet, she felt the same. That was why she pushed so hard to meet Martin. Doing something that big, that important a step, even though it scared the shit out of her, was the least Amy thought she could do.

She tried. She tried so fucking hard.

But - even if she didn't know it - she kept coming up just short.

Right up until the night she met Shelby.

* * *

Shelby was fucking everywhere.

Or, at least it felt that way to Amy.

It was rapidly getting to the point where Amy felt like there weren't just two people in her relationship. Theirs was a threesome, a love triangle with one point missing.

(A square, if you counted Karma.)

(Amy tried really hard not to.)

She felt it more and more every day, felt the anger and resentment and aggravation of it bubbling up inside her every time Shelby's name came up. Which, it seemed to Amy, was damn near all the fucking time.

Whenever she mentioned meeting Martin.

Whenever she thought Reagan was just about to say those three little words.

Whenever - and this was the one Amy almost couldn't stand - it seemed like maybe, just maybe, she and Reagan were finally going to… you know.

And yes, Amy realized that if, even in her own head, she couldn't stop referring to it as 'you know', then she probably wasn't really ready yet. And that made all the sense in the world, it made for an easy, ready made excuse for why Reagan kept pulling away.

It was perfectly logical.

And complete bullshit.

Amy knew she had limited

(and by limited she really meant  _none_ )

real relationship experience. Faking it didn't count - in so many different ways - and the closest she'd come other than that was her one night stand with Liam

(ugh)

and her one failed kiss with Oliver. So, she had a grand total of one person who wasn't attracted to her because she was the wrong gender

(no matter how much Amy believe 'woah', 'I know' wasn't just because it was, in Karma's words, "hot")

one who fucked her out of convenience

(and because she was the best weapon against Karma)

and one who had… well… made her a crane. And most definitely  _not_  made her 'no no place' say 'yes, yes'.

Yeah, she had no experience worth a damn to fall back on. But that didn't matter. She didn't need it. Not for this. Not to know that something was off.

And the way she saw it, there were only two real possibilities for what that something was.

It was her. Or it was Shelby.

Amy wasn't sure which of those was worse.

But, Amy being Amy, it didn't really matter. Because they both did the same thing, the worst thing anyone could do to her.

They made her doubt.

And that one little seed of doubt, that tiniest of questionable thoughts, that most ridiculous of concerns, was all Amy needed to go fully round the bend, at least in her own mind. She did, somehow, manage to keep her growing insecurities to herself. She didn't drag Reagan into it, didn't tell her girlfriend how she was examining every single detail of every single encounter they'd had.

Amy never mentioned replaying every kiss. Every something more than a kiss. Every night falling asleep in Reagan's arms and every morning waking up beside her.

All that thinking - which was  _never_  good for Amy - all that replaying and examining and studying from every fucking angle, had left Amy with two things.

A headache.

And the conclusion that Reagan was - in her own Reagan-ish way - trying to tell her something, that she kept bringing up her ex because she was trying to find a way to say something she couldn't quite find the words for.

(And if Amy had known that - eventually - Reagan  _would_  find the words? That she'd eventually manage to blurt out 'I love you' because she just couldn't hold it for one more second and 'I want to be your Shelby' as way of explanation for the 'I love you' being so fucking long in coming?)

(She might have relaxed.)

(Might.)

(She was still Amy, after all.)

Amy wasn't afraid of losing Reagan to Shelby. She knew that wasn't going to happen. Reagan was over her and Amy  _knew_  that. But she also knew that Reagan had loved her.

_Loved_  her. Capital 'L'. Capital everything else.

Reagan hadn't said as much out loud, but Amy got it. She knew how much Reagan had loved Shelby. Loved her to the point that if Reagan hadn't caught her in the act, if she hadn't been forced to  _literally_ face the truth

(Shelby staring at her, standing dumbfounded in the doorway, while she kept right on fucking her boyfriend - her  _ex_  boyfriend or so Reagan had thought - Shelby watching Reagan break while she screamed her way through and orgasm that put every one Reagan had ever given her to shame)

Reagan would have ignored it. She would have ignored the doubts, the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something was off, something was wrong.

A feeling not unlike the one Amy was having.

If it hadn't been so blatant, so out there, so right in her fucking face, Reagan would have pretended. She would have stayed in the metaphorical closet just so she and Shelby could have stayed together. She would have been cuckolded.

And she wouldn't have done a fucking thing about it.

_That_  wasn't the Reagan Amy knew. That was someone else. Some other girl, some other life.

A life Amy couldn't help but feel Reagan was still trying to get out from under.

And she didn't know how to help her.

Until the night she met Shelby.

* * *

When Amy finally did meet Martin for the first time, it  _was_  painful.

For him.

He got pepper sprayed. And punched in the face. And kicked in the balls.

It wasn't Amy's best first impression.

But, if the first time she met Reagan's father was painful - at least for him - then the first (and only) time she met Reagan's ex was like open heart surgery without anesthesia.

It was almost their anniversary. Six weeks - and yes, Amy had, against her own better judgment, become one of  _those_  people, the ones who celebrate every fucking week together - and despite her worries and stresses, Amy was happier than she'd ever been.

She wouldn't have minded being able to share this all with her best friend, but that one minor inconvenience was something Amy was learning to live with.

Besides, she figured, she'd tell Karma eventually and it would all be fine. Maybe Karma would be a little put out, at first, but, come on, it was Karma.

How bad could it really go?

One night short of their anniversary and Amy was hanging at a club where Reagan was spinning, waiting for her girlfriend to get done with her set. Amy had very distinct plans for the rest of the evening.

Dance. Make out. Dance. Make out. Make out. Make out. Dance

(for like five minutes)

Retreat to Reagan's apartment for more making out. Preferably with considerably less clothing.

_That_  particular idea had been front and center in Amy's mind since the night before. Since the moment she had learned to appreciate just what 'blue balls' were.

Since the moment Reagan had chosen to - rather abruptly - end their night and take Amy home.

"You've got school in the morning," she told Amy. "I know your mom loves me and all, but if you start flunking classes…"

Bullshit.

Amy had thought it - quite loudly - in her own head.  _Bullshit_. For weeks while faking it with Karma, Amy had been the Queen of avoidance, the Duchess of denial, the Princess of 'move it along, nothing to see here'.

She knew bullshit when she heard it.

Reagan didn't care even a little bit about Amy's grades. Maybe -  _maybe_  - she cared about what Farrah thought of her, but they both knew Amy's mother was so far over-the-moon for her daughter's new girlfriend that Amy would have to commit armed robbery or talk about being gay in front of Nana for Farrah to even blink.

It was simple logic. Really.

It was bullshit.

It was  _also_  the fact that, at the very fucking  _second_  Reagan had grown so concerned about Amy's education, she'd had one hand down the back of Amy's unbuttoned jeans, squeezing the blonde's ass so hard Amy was pretty sure the cops could have lifted a fingerprint or two from her flesh.

And the other hand?

Fuck. That  _other_ hand.

Even thinking about it twenty-four hours later, in a crowded club, with the bass thumping in her ears and underage pervy teenage boys leering at her was enough to make Amy just a little wet

(maybe more than a little)

and her nipples hard all over again.

Amy had never been touched like that - been touched  _there_. Yes, Reagan had come close that day Farrah caught them, but there'd still been a bra then. There'd still been fabric between Reagan's hands - her  _fingers -_  and Amy's flesh.

Amy had never imagined fabric - or the lack of it - making such a difference.

Reagan's touch - the feel of her fingers dancing along Amy's skin - had stirred something in the blonde that all every fantasy she'd ever had about Karma

(or her reality with Liam)

had never even gotten close to. The way Reagan's fingers brushed along the edge of her bra made Amy's heart race. The anticipation as those finger slipped between the strap and Amy's skin almost made her boil over.

Reagan had spent the first month of their relationship slowly prodding Amy into being more vocal, more open, letting her know when something felt good.

"It's OK," she told Amy over and over. "I like hearing you. I love knowing what I'm doing to you."

And even with all that, Amy was pretty sure that even Reagan was stunned by the moan the blonde let out when Reagan's fingers so deftly popped the front clasp on her bra and slipped one hand beneath, cupping Amy's breast, a finger and her thumb capturing and gently rolling one already hard nipple between them.

Yeah, Reagan was stunned. Hell,  _Amy_  was too. But she saw it, she saw it on Reagan's face, saw the mixture of surprise and arousal and - for just a fleeting second - there was something else.

And Amy didn't need to be experienced to know that 'something else' was why Reagan stopped. Why she suddenly got so concerned with Amy's schooling. Why she suddenly stood up and straightened her own clothes and grabbed Lightning's keys off the coffee table.

It was that something else that had dominated Amy's thoughts ever since. That something else that had lit a fire under those worries and fears and insecurities. And it was that something else that Amy was bound and fucking determined they were going to deal with that night.

Even if 'dealing with it' meant pinning Reagan down and fucking that 'something else' right out of her.

(Amy kinda hoped it would mean that)

So she went to the club and waited. And danced. And used the fake ID Reagan and Shane had 'found' for her to get a few drinks so she could shut all those worries up.

And then that 'something else' walked right into the club in a super short, super tight, and holy-fucking-shit-hot mini dress.

And that was how Amy met Shelby.

* * *

After he met Amy for the first time, it took a few hours for Martin's face to stop burning and for his normal vision to return. He walked away with a black eye and his balls ached for a week.

Amy had never been pepper sprayed. She'd never been punched in the face and she - for obvious reasons - had never taken one in the junk.

But after she saw Shelby for the first time - live and in living hotness - Amy was pretty sure she knew how all those things felt.

And then some.

She'd seen Shelby before, in old photos. But seeing her on a computer screen or the tiny little screen of her iPhone? Not quite the same thing. Not quite the same thing  _at all_.

Shane had said, on more than once occasion, that Reamy was the hottest couple ever, real or fictional.

Hotter than Selena and Justin, he said. Hotter than Hollstein . Hotter than Taylor Swift and… well… any of them.

"Hotter than Bechloe?" Reagan had asked once.

"Let's be real," Shane said. "No one is  _that_  hot."

Clearly, he had never seen Shelby.

Amy stared - and she wasn't the only one - and did everything but have her eyes bug out like a bad cartoon. She didn't even know where to look.

The red hair, maybe? The drapes that, thanks to a drunken slip from Reagan, she knew matched the carpet.

(And Amy wanted desperately to be thinking about anything -  _anything_  - other than Shelby's carpet right then.)

Or, possibly, the body? The perfection that was Shelby was… well..

Perfect.

Amy had a hard time with  _that_. But, try as she might - and she was trying so fucking hard - she couldn't find a flaw.

Maybe her legs? Were they  _too_  long?

Or maybe it was her ass. Yeah,  _that_  was the flaw. Cause, you know, really? Who really wants to be able to bounce a quarter off it  _and_  still feel like you could sink your fingers into it and be able to hang on tight while you buried your tongue in…

Fuck.

Amy needed a drink.

No. She  _needed_  a flaw. A problem. A something wrong, a something off, a something that wouldn't attract every person - male or female - in the joint.

It certainly wasn't her flawlessly made up face. Or that fucking smile.

Girl next door meets dirty fucking whore meets 'I'll make you scream my name while your mother's in the next room and if she comes in, I'll make her scream too.'

There wasn't a thing wrong. There wasn't a thing Amy could see that would make anyone do anything but what they were all doing. If Amy had been able to look anywhere else, she'd have seen every head in the club turn - as fucking one - and follow Shelby to the bar.

Every head but one.

* * *

It was, Reagan knew, nothing more than self-preservation. It always had been.

OK, so maybe the fact that ever since she and Shelby broke up, she had kept one eye on the door of every club she spun in wasn't  _always_  self-preservation. Maybe once upon a time, just at first, just in those first few weeks when she still had hope

(Shelby could have come to her senses)

(the boy could have just been… well… fear. Or something)

(he  _could've_  been)

( _really_ )

maybe back then there was still something else to it. Maybe she was hopeful, maybe she was still feeling and not thinking. Maybe she was just desperate and heartbroken and praying that she could see that smile one more time.

Not the one Shelby wore now. Not that smile Amy saw, the one that made men babble like idiots and made women wet.

Reagan had seen  _that_  smile before. Before she and Shelby met, when Shelby was still just the girl who sometimes sat at the bar while Reagan spun. Before they danced one night, before they spent all night at the diner by Reagan's apartment, before they spent an entire weekend fucking and talking and laughing and fucking and Shelby swore there was no one else for her.

She'd seen  _that_  smile and she'd hated it. But then there was the dance and the diner and the weekend that taught Reagan so fucking much.

After that, there was only  _her_  smile.

Her smile was the one that lit up Shelby's entire face. The one that spread slowly, like the way a crackling fire could slowly spread its heat up your body, bit by bit, so slowly it almost fucking hurt.

_That_  smile? Reagan loved that smile It was the one that was just for her, it was the one that buried that  _other_  one away somewhere, the one that Reagan watched for from her decks every night she spun.

It was the one that said 'I love you' without a word.

And Reagan lived for it.

More than she did for time with her father. More than she did for her hopes of Glenn coming home safe. More than for cater-waitering

(OK. Not the best example.)

More than she did for spinning.

Shelby was Reagan's everything. Not a single night went by when Reagan didn't watch the door, waiting for that smile. Waiting for her love to arrive. Shelby, Reagan was convinced, was  _the one_.

She was Reagan's whole world.

Right up until that world stopped spinning.

So, yeah, at first there might have been some hope. Some desperation. Some denial even, in the way Reagan's heart tried to convince her that what her eyes had seen, what her mind  _believed_ , that it all wasn't real.

Shelby had been scared. They were too serious. It was too fast. That was all it was.

There was hope.

Hope, Reagan realized very quickly, could keep you afloat.

Or it could push you under, drive you beneath the swells and let the waves crush you.

It only happened once. Reagan saw her and, as far as Reagan could tell, Shelby saw her at the same time.

By the time Reagan blinked, Shelby was gone.

After that?

Reagan refused. She refused to hope, she refused to deny, she refused to forgive.

She wasn't going to fucking drown. Not for Shelby. Not for anyone.

After that, it was all self-preservation. It went from hope to habit. She watched the door of every club she spun in. And all that practice, all that time waiting and hoping to see that smile, it made it so easy. Reagan never slipped up, she never paid more attention to the door than to her work.

And she never saw her again.

Reagan couldn't know if it was dumb luck, the law of averages, if Shelby was just spending all her time fucking her boyfriend, or if her ex was purposefully avoiding her. And really?

She didn't actually care.

Over time - over the last slow moving year - Reagan got to a point where she hardly even noticed anymore. She still watched the door, but it was just habit.

She was quite sure she was never going to see Shelby again.

Right up until she did.

In the end, Reagan figured it made all the sense in the world that it was  _that_  night. The night before her anniversary with Amy, the night she was planning - or  _hoping_  - to finally tell Amy how she felt.

Of course that would be the night Shelby showed up. Of fucking course.

And while everyone else -  _everyone_  else - in the club watched Shelby, Reagan watched Amy.

Maybe, Reagan hoped, Amy wouldn't recognize her. Maybe, Reagan  _prayed_ , Amy will just think she looks like someone she knows, but she can't quite place her.

Maybe Amy's eyes always track someone like that, maybe they always look like they're boring a hole through someone, like they'd just as soon rip that person's face off as speak to them.

So, maybe Amy not recognizing her was off the table. But that was fine. Reagan's set was almost done. Three more songs and she'd be down the ladder, grabbing Amy by the hand and leading her to the parking lot.

And if she had to literally kiss the sight of Shelby from Amy's mind, well Reagan was just fine with that.

Until, for no reason Reagan would ever even begin to fucking understand, she looked away from Amy. She let her eyes drift to the bar, through the crowd, to that unmistakable, unforgettable face.

Right to Shelby.

Who, Reagan found, was staring right back at her, and that fucking smile had faltered. Just a little.

And when Reagan finally - ten, fifteen, thirty seconds later - managed to look away?

She found herself staring right into the eyes of her girlfriend. And there was something in those eyes, something dancing behind them that Reagan had never seen before and - even though whatever it was it kinda turned her on

(more than kinda)

she never wanted to see again.

Which was fine, really. Because Amy wasn't looking at her anymore.

Amy was walking.

No, not walking.

_Walking_.

There was anger in those steps. Anger and determination and a 'fuck you' attitude that had people clearing a path

(and staring at her)

(not, ironically, unlike they'd just been staring at Shelby)

and that path led only one place.

Shelby.

* * *

The first - and only - time she ever met Amy Raudenfeld, Shelby never saw the blonde girl coming.

She didn't know Reagan had a new girlfriend and, if she had, Amy wouldn't have been her first guess. Shelby would have imagined someone older. Louder. WIth a bit more up top and flashier fashion and - definitely - more attitude.

Someone more like her.

That had less to do with Shelby's ego and more to do with the simple fact that every girl she'd hooked up with since Reagan

(and there had been a few)

( _more_  than a few)

could have been described as Reagan-esque.

Not nearly as hot. Not nearly as intelligent or talented or… well… not nearly as Reagan.

But as close as Shelby could come.

So, maybe it would have been a bit of wishful thinking, maybe a bit of hope? Maybe a little wistful dreaming that Reagan was still so hung up on her

(not that Shelby was hung up)

(nope, not even a little)

(sure) (right) (absolutely)

that she had done what the redhead had been trying to do. Find another her.

Which anyone with eyes and a working brain could easily tell was  _not_  Amy.

So, yeah, Shelby never saw Amy coming. Not even when the crowd was parting like the Red fucking Sea for the blonde as she marched across the crowded dance floor.

And if she had? If she'd seen Amy coming or known who Amy was or realized why Amy was suddenly stalking her?

She wouldn't have done a damn thing differently.

And that?  _That_  was ego.

Ego and - even if Shelby was loathe to admit it - hope. Hope that maybe she still stood a chance. Hope that somehow the last year had softened Reagan's feelings toward her, that maybe her favorite DJ would welcome her back.

Shelby knew it was a longshot. She knew that even if Reagan took her back, it would be hard and there would be a lot of anger and a lot more tears before it was all said and done. But if the last year had taught her anything - besides that old chestnut about not knowing what you had till it was gone - it was that she was willing to work. She was willing to do anything.

The last year was evidence of that.

Shelby had realized her mistake almost before Reagan was out the door. She'd come to her senses so fast it almost physically hurt. She'd dumped her boyfriend within a week and had - more times than she liked to think about - punched Reagan's number into her phone, but never hit the call button.

She was a lot of things, but Shelby wasn't stupid. She knew it was too soon. She knew it might  _always_  be too soon. So she had focused on herself. On fixing whatever was broken inside her that had driven her to hurt Reagan so fucking badly.

In short? It sucked. But not as much as the other… things.

While Reagan had been religiously watching the doors of every club she spun in,Shelby had spent the last year doing two things on a consistent basis.

Thing number one? Avoiding.

Shelby avoided any place Reagan was spinning - or anywhere else they might have ever had in common - like the fucking plague. She changed grocery stores, went to different movie theaters, stopped getting her morning latte at the coffee shop around the corner from Reagan's apartment.

There were restaurants Shelby never visited anymore. Gas stations she wouldn't fill up at, clubs she never danced at, hell, there were people who thought she might well be dead because of how completely she'd vanished from their lives.

Shelby changed anything and everything about her life, just so long as it minimized her chances of bumping into Reagan. She knew if she was ever going to have a chance, she needed to give Reagan some time, some space. A chance to let the anger fade enough that she could see past it.

So avoidance was thing number one.

Thing number two?

Missing.

Missing Reagan was like a painful aching nauseating burning thing in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't make go away. No matter how many Reagan-alikes she fucked, it never stopped, it never got any better.

And the guilt didn't help. The nearly unbearable, unforgivable guilt that had set in the moment she said those words.

_It was just a phase._

Shelby knew, without asking - because, really, who the fuck could she ask? - that Reagan didn't remember it  _that_ way. She didn't remember those words.

'It was' wasn't what Reagan heard. Being a lesbian wasn't the phase.

In Reagan's mind, it wasn't 'it was'. It was 'you were'.

_You were a phase_.

Shelby figured Reagan spent months wishing those words weren't true, just like Shelby had spent months wishing they  _were_.

(A phase wouldn't hurt so fucking much.)

But it wasn't until she met Amy that Shelby realized that the one last thing she and Reagan had in common - those fucking words - was just as long gone as their relationship.

* * *

Reagan slapped at the knobs, pressed the buttons, cued up three more songs

(she didn't even look at what the hell they were)

(she could have cued up Barry fucking Manilow for all she knew)

and made a break for the ladder.

She knew the chances were slim. She was in good shape, she was quick, she could move like a cat when she needed to, like a big black fucking panther stalking its prey. But when the prey - her girlfriend - was doing a little stalking of her own? And she had a pretty sizable head start?

Yeah, Reagan knew her odds weren't good. There was very little chance she'd get to Amy before Amy got to Shelby. Very little chance she'd be able to cut the blonde off at the pass.

Very little chance she'd get out of this without having to actually see Shelby.

And Reagan was surprisingly OK with that.

She'd spent so long avoiding Shelby that she was almost -  _almost_  - welcoming the chance to see her. To face her. To prove to herself once and for all that she was over her.

It was a chance, one Reagan had thought she'd never have. A chance to prove that Shelby had  _nothing_ to do with why she'd been holding back with Amy. Why she'd pushed away every time Amy got close, why every time Amy tried to bring up meeting her father or taking things to the 'next level'

(and God Amy was so fucking adorable when she tried to talk all sexy)

Reagan had found a way to shut her up.

Granted, it wasn't like they didn't both enjoy most of those ways, especially the ones that involved Amy on Reagan's lap and grinding hips and Reagan's hands trailing up under the back of Amy's shirt and her tongue caught between Amy's lips while the blond gently sucked on it

(the first time Amy had trotted out that particular trick, Reagan had damn near fucked her on Farrah's couch)

but Reagan knew. She knew Amy was starting to worry. Really worry,

And Amy wasn't the only one.

Reagan would never admit it, at least not out loud, but it  _was_  Shelby. It had always been Shelby. Every single girl who had asked Reagan out in the last year - until Amy - had Shelby to thank for their rejection. Amy was the first one to get past that. Reagan didn't know if it was the shrimp or the scene she made at the Booker's party or what, but something about Amy had hooked her.

For the first time in a year, she looked at another girl and saw  _her_  and not Shelby.

And then there'd been the night out with Theo and Lauren. And the truth about Karma and 'falling in that direction" and… well…

Then there was fear.

There was Shelby.

Reagan didn't think Amy was another Shelby. Really, she didn't. Amy was too nice, too self-conscious, too awed by every little step forward they made. Reagan didn't think, even for a second, that she was a Shelby.

But then she hadn't thought Shelby was a Shelby either..

And there were those words.

Those four little fucking words.

_You were a phase_.

Reagan knew that wasn't really what Shelby said. She knew Shelby hadn't said that  _she_ was the phase.

Like it really fucking mattered. Like the semantics of the thing were important. Like the very specific word choice distinctions made even the tiniest bit of difference. Like even Reagan's love for Amy or even her (almost) absolute trust in her even mattered.

Shelby had been, as far as Reagan knew, a  _real_  lesbian. At least she'd never faked it. She'd never lied to her entire school and her family and convinced everyone she was something she wasn't. And yeah, Shelby had an ex. The very same ex Reagan had seen far more of than she ever wanted to.

But that ex?

He wasn't Karma.

He wasn't Shelby's almost life long best friend. He wasn't the person Shelby had lied to everyone for. He wasn't the single most important person in Shelby's life. That had been her. Or so Shelby said. So she'd told  _him_  when he'd tried to get her back.

Reagan had fallen. Not just for Shelby. But for her words. For her lies. For her… faking.

Martin never had. Her father had seen through her from the very beginning, he'd warned Reagan right at the start. But when she didn't want to hear it, when she didn't want to even consider that Shelby was anything other than exactly what she said, Martin had left it alone.

Reagan knew he wouldn't do that again.

So she held off. She pushed away. She kept just enough distance that she could pretend she wasn't as far gone as she really was. And she kept her father away from Amy so there was no chance he could see through her, no chance he could see that Amy was just another Shelby.

She couldn't take it if Amy was. And she  _really_  couldn't take it if her father had to be the one to show her the truth.

So when Reagan practically slid down the ladder and pushed and shoved and raced and did everything she could to get between her girlfriend and her ex, she - ironically - saw it the same way Shelby did: as a chance. A chance to prove it, once and for all. Maybe she hadn't seen it before, maybe she'd missed the lies and the deceptions - or at least convinced herself she didn't see it - but now?

Now she had a chance.

She was going to see them. Together. And somehow, she'd know. Somehow, she'd see the truth, no matter what it was. Because if there was one thing Reagan knew, above all else, it was that she couldn't let herself do that again. If there was going to be a big fucking neon sign blazing the truth at her in the dark, she was going to fucking see it.

And this time? She'd listen.

* * *

The moment she saw Reagan again, Shelby was done. The last year was non-existent. The memory of every Reagan-wannabe she'd fucked in the last twelve months slipped from her mind and her every attempt at pretending and denying and claiming she was over it

(over  _her_ )

went right out the fucking window.

Shelby had been convinced that when she saw Reagan again, she wouldn't even recognize her, that she wouldn't see the girl she left behind. She'd heard enough from the friends of the friends they still had in common to know that Reagan had changed.

She hadn't gone out with anyone since the split.

(Clearly, as Shelby was about to find out,  _that_  info was slightly outdated.)

Reagan had become gun shy, too afraid to even flirt. She was unsure of herself, tentative even around the people she was closest to. And  _that_  was what killed Shelby the most. Reagan - the Reagan she'd known and loved - had been the most confident, self assured, take no shit from anyone woman Shelby had ever met.

She was a badass. She was a motherfucking queen.

And - even if she hadn't meant to - Shelby had taken that from her. And that hurt. But underneath that hurt, somewhere deep down, Shelby had to admit that a part of her wasn't… well… wasn't  _happy_  that Reagan was suffering. But it certainly didn't suck.

Suffering Reagan meant Shelby wasn't alone. It meant that somewhere out there, in some bizarre and twisted way, Reagan was still with her. They were still bonded together, even if it was just in their pain. It was - almost - oddly comforting.

And then Shelby saw her.

She saw Reagan up at her deck. She saw her spinning and dancing and just being…  _her_.

And Shelby's heart broke all over again. Because she saw it. She didn't know who it was, she didn't know who had changed it for Reagan, but she knew  _someone_  had.

Maybe someone -  _anyone -_  else wouldn't have seen it. Maybe they wouldn't have even known what to look for or what signs to see or even known the fucking difference.

But Shelby wasn't anyone else. She was Reagan's first love.

And even if Reagan would never believe it - and Shelby knew she wouldn't - Reagan was hers.

But in that moment, in that club, as she watched her? Shelby knew.

Reagan's heart wasn't  _hers_. Not anymore.

* * *

Amy was not meant to be impulsive. She was, frequently, but that didn't mean it was a good idea. All you had to do was look at her last six months to see that.

There was kissing Karma and the croquembouche incident. Or confessing her feelings in the most impromptu and ill-advised wedding toast in history.

Fucking Liam.

Impulsivity was not Amy's friend.

Until Reagan. Until she'd hung up on Karma and climbed that ladder and asked DJ Hottie out.

It was only once. One time when being impulsive didn't backfire on her, didn't make things a whole metric fuckload worse.

But what a 'once' it was. And now she was staring down the one thing

(because she was so  _not_  counting Karma)

that could fuck her 'once' up. And so Amy didn't think. She was, truthfully, past thinking, and had been since the moment the night before when Reagan touched her -  _touched_  her - and then pushed her away. It was frustrating and not  _just_ sexually.

Amy was frustrated with herself. With her own inability to girl the fuck up and fix whatever the hell was wrong with her and Reagan before it got too serious. She was frustrated and scared.

Scared of finally meeting Martin. Scared of not being enough for Reagan. Scared that her inexperience and immaturity was slowly turning the older girl off.

And then all of those worries and fears and insecurities walked right in front of her in her way too tight outfit and staring way too long at  _Amy's_  girlfriend.

So, yeah.

Amy and impulsivity didn't work well together.

But when had that ever stopped her?

* * *

If you knew what to look for, it wasn't hard to spot. And after all those nights of fending off one DJ groupie after another

(and yes, that's a real thing)

Shelby had grown quite adept at knowing what to look for.

It was in the eyes, usually. The lust. The want. The hunger. It was - usually - a primal thing, purely sexual. Drunk and horny girls looking to hook up and the hottest one of them all was the one up on that platform. When Reagan spun, it was like she was the fucking queen ruling from on high. And every one of her subjects wanted nothing more than to service her, to please their queen.

Shelby got it.

Once upon a time, she'd been one of them. So she understood.

And if that was the only thing she saw in Amy's eyes, if the first time she'd stared into them she'd seen nothing but that hunger, she would've dismissed Amy out of hand. She would've ignored the younger girl's admonishment

"You can stop staring now."

and gone right back to what she was doing, which  _was_  staring. Watching Reagan come down the ladder, watching her start to move through the drunken masses.

Shelby had never realized how much you could miss the way someone moves.

So she almost didn't even look at Amy and probably wouldn't have if the blonde hadn't been all up in her personal space. She turned to her, just to tell her to fuck off, and that was when she saw it.

That hunger. That lust.

That  _anger_.

Shelby had never seen that before, but she'd heard about it, she knew what it looked like, because they'd all told her about it. Her friends.

_Their_  friends.

They had all seen it. Night after night, time after time. In  _her_  eyes when she was dealing with the little wannabe DJ fuckers. That anger. It wasn't  _just_  anger.

It was possession.

And suddenly, even without knowing her name, Shelby knew  _exactly_  who Amy was.

Which didn't stop her from asking, "Who the fuck are you?" with all the venom and mean girl 'fuck with me and I'll fuck  _you_  up' attitude she could muster.

It was weak and she knew it. She was out of practice. She hadn't had much cause for threats the last year or so, hadn't really had any territory to protect.

And, Shelby realized quite quickly, she hadn't been on this end of it, not in a very long time. She was the intruder, she was the wannabe, she was the problem.

She was the  _threat_.

For a second or two, she wondered if Amy even knew who she was. Probably not. Most likely, Blondie had just picked out the hottest girl in the place and was looking to make a name for herself, stake her claim good and loud for everyone to see.

Two, Shelby figured, could play that game.

"I know who you are," she said, stepping closer to Amy, virtually eliminating the space between them. It was an old trick, the body contact, the heat, the sexual energy of it all designed to fluster the newbie.

"Yeah?" Amy asked, not backing up even a step. "Who am I?"

Shelby smiled and it was just about the most evil thing Amy had ever seen.

"You're the new me," she said.

* * *

"You're the new me."

Reagan froze. She was too far away to interject, but close enough to hear. Stuck in some sort of limbo, unable to move or speak, just locked there like she was frozen in time.

It was those words.

Those four fucking words.

You're. The. New. Me.

Leave it to Shelby to come back after a year and peg Reagan's worst fear on the first fucking try.

And leave it to Amy to shoot that right to hell.

"I'm nothing like you," she said. "Nothing at all."

"Really?" Shelby asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm and that 'bored, now' tone she used when she was done messing with some little bitch that wanted a piece of what she thought was hers. "You sure about that? You  _positive?"_

Reagan watched Amy carefully, watched her as her eyes shifted, dropped, unable to quite hold onto Shelby's gaze.

Score one for the ex.

"No," Shelby said, unable to resist a little gloat. "You're right. You're  _nothing_  like me."

Reagan's heart dropped as Amy faltered, shrunk back just a step, the aggression already fading.

"If you were like me," Shelby said, pressing the issue, "you wouldn't be  _worried_ about me. You wouldn't have to be. Because you would know, without even a flicker of doubt, that every single bit of her? Is yours."

Shelby stepped away from the bar, bending just slightly so she could put herself right in Amy's downcast vision.

"But you don't  _know_ , do you?" she asked. "Because you do know who I am. I can tell. And now, seeing me, you're wondering and worrying and thinking about every little thing that isn't quite right with the two of you."

Reagan dropped her eyes. She couldn't watch.

"And you're wondering," Shelby said. "You're wondering if it's me. If  _I'm_  what's wrong. Or, more accurately, if it's  _you_  that's wrong."

"Because  _you're_ not  _me_."

* * *

Amy saw her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Reagan. Hurt. Wounded. Head hung low but starting to move. Taking a step forward, pushing past the last of the people between her and the two of them.

And for the first time - but not the last - Amy realized it was all on her. She could stop Reagan's pain.

And that gave her a strength she didn't know she could have.

"You're right," Amy said and Shelby blinked and Reagan stopped. Quite literally, actually. She stops moving, stops thinking, might even had stopped breathing.

And then Amy looked up And locked eyes with Shelby and Reagan saw something she'd never seen before.

Shelby flinched.

Oh, it wasn't much. Barely a twitch. Hardly a flicker. Someone else might not have noticed.

But that whole knowing each other thing? It totally worked both ways.

"You  _are_  the problem, Shelby," Amy said and it was a voice Reagan had never heard before

(but would, again, the next time Amy fought for her)

and Amy rolled on. "You're the problem, the thing that's between us. You and your lies and your bullshit and the way you used her and threw her aside when you were done."

Shelby tried to interrupt. She  _tried_.

"I didn't -"

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

Shelby's eyes grew impossibly wide

(almost as wide as Reagan's)

and she opened her mouth to speak, to ask Amy just who the fuck she thought she was.

But she didn't . Because she knew who Amy thought she was. And that Amy didn't just think it, she knew.

She's Reagan's.

"You know what I see when I look at you, Shelby?" Amy asked. "Pain. So much fucking pain. it just kills you, doesn't it? To see her looking so good, so whole, so  _not_  broken."

Reagan stared at her ex and, for the first time, she saw what Amy did. Not the enemy. Not the liar.

Just a broken woman.

Not unlike her.

"You thought she'd still be waiting, didn't you?" It was Amy's turn to press. "You thought she'd just be watching that door, waiting for your smile. For your time and your love and for you to deem her worthy once again."

Shelby wanted to argue. She really did.

But she just fucking couldn't.

"You thought she was yours. Always." Amy stepped forward, crowding Shelby. "But now you know. You know that maybe tonight you'll take someone home. Maybe someone that looks like her, smells like her, maybe even fucks like her."

Shelby had serious doubts about the last one.

"But it won't be her," Amy said. "Because  _she_ is going home with  _me_."

And that was one step too far, one shot too many, one last push Shelby just couldn't take.

"Home with you? For what?" she scoffed. "So you can cuddle? Eat some cookies and watch Netflix all night in your jammies? Or maybe braid each other's hair?"

It was Shelby's last gasp, her last defense, her last shot and they both knew it.

But that didn't mean it didn't sting a little.

"You're what? Sixteen?" Shelby asked. "You think you know the first thing about keeping a woman like Reagan happy?"

Amy shrugged. "Not fucking a guy is probably a good start."

"I made a mistake," Shelby spat. "One I've had to live with. But not anymore. I found her again and if you think I'm going to walk away -"

Amy interrupted. Calm. Cool. Not a hint of the somersaults her stomach was doing even the tiniest bit evident in her voice.

"I don't think you're going to walk away, Shelby," she said. "I think you're going to  _run_. You're going to run out of here in tears because yeah, maybe I am new at this, maybe I am… what do they call it?.. a baby dyke."

Amy stepped forward one last time, so close Shelby could feel Amy's breath on her skin.

"But I'm  _her_  baby dyke," Amy said. "And she knows that  _I'm_  never going to leave. No matter how slow we go, no matter how long it takes for her to trust that I won't be  _you_."

That, Reagan realized, might not take as long as she thought.

"You thought this was your second chance, Shelby?" Amy laughed. "This isn't your second anything. This? This is you seeing the last nail getting hammered into your coffin."

Shelby felt the tears pooling in her eye and rolling down her cheeks but she refused to give Amy the satisfaction of seeing her wipe them away.

"This is when you run, Shelby," Amy said. "And if I were you? I wouldn't look back. Because all you'll see is her. Living and laughing and loving and yeah, sometimes struggling and sad and angry and crying, but it won't matter. Because no matter what? Reagan will  _never_  be alone again."

Amy turned and then stopped, finding Reagan's eyes through the crowd.

"You may only see her," Amy said. "But you should know  _this_ , Shelby. Wherever  _she_  is?"

"I'm never far."

* * *

Reagan and Amy didn't sleep together that night.

They stayed up most of it watching documentaries on Netflix

(making out)

eating cookies

(making out)

and yes, Reagan did braid Amy's hair

(and made out with her).

And, right before she fell asleep, with Amy tucked in next to her, the blonde's head on her chest, Reagan sent one simple text message.

_Hey Dad. Lunch this week? There's someone I want you to meet._

 

 

_**A/N:  Yeah, it's been a while.  Other stories got in the way.  But the next chapter is already started.  So, after the next Bartender chapter, I can get back to this.  Sooner this time.  Gotta get through the hiatus somehow, right?** _


	27. Chapter 27

_**A/N: Hmm... I think I used to write this story once upon a time...** _

Amy thinks Mondays suck.

They, more often than not, ruin a perfectly good weekend, involve her having to race around and do all the things she didn't do during that perfectly good weekend

(chores, homework, and dressing in something other than her bacon sweats, for example)

and, worst of all, Mondays mean school.

It's not that Amy doesn't like school. She enjoys learning - it's not like she watches all those documentaries for her health - and she does, someday, hope to go to college and, as the old folks say, 'make something of herself.' School, she often thinks, would be fine.

If it weren't for the, you know, people.

And by 'people', she totally means all of them, every single other student and teacher at Hester, because Amy is anti-social in a very non-biased or exclusionary way. Though, lately

(and by lately, she totally means the last forty-eight hours)

'people' has come to mean something, or  _someone_  - or more than one someone - slightly more specific. Karma. Liam. Everyone who was at the party. Everyone who heard about the party. Everyone who read Vashti's surprisingly good piece about Lauren on the school tumblr.

So, yeah. Basically still everyone. And, basically, that's an entire student body's worth of reasons not to leave her bed on a Monday morning.

"I'm not going," she says, head still resting on the pillow as she watches Reagan - in nothing but her lacey black bra and matching thong - rifle through her closet for something to wear. Farrah let her stay over again and, shockingly, even let them close the door.

The privacy, and what they got up to with that privacy (which still makes Amy blush just thinking about it) is almost enough reason for Amy to want to get emotionally shattered every weekend.

Reagan mumbles something that sounds like an 'ok' and a 'whatever you say' but Amy doesn't hear any of it because her girlfriend chooses that moment to bend over, looking through a pile of clothes on the floor of Amy's closet. Even though her bed is warm and cozy and she's wrapped up in the softest blanket ever

(a gift from Lauren yesterday when they made an impromptu shopping trip to Kohl's)

the sight of Reagan bent over like that.. well.. it might make Amy feel some kind of way.

OK. Maybe not  _might_. It does. And some kind of way, Amy knows, is really just code for horny and hot and dear sweet Jesus does her girlfriend have a nice ass which is more than enough reason for her to slip from the bed and sneak up behind Reagan, silently moving until she's right behind her, gripping her hips and grinding ever so gently against the older girl's ass.

Reagan moans and stumbles, just a little, before quickly righting herself. She stands - slowly - pressing herself back against Amy and sliding her own hands over the blonde's, fingers sliding together.

"Shrimps?" She tilts her head back so she can look at Amy, which leaves her neck exposed, a fact Amy quickly notices and - with soft lips and a very active tongue - quickly takes advantage of.

Amy's not quite sure what's come over her - besides that view and a real desire to not leave the room but right now, the idea of pinning Reagan against her closet door and continuing some of those privacy-induced activities from last night sounds very, very appealing.

Reagan's moans, low and soft and almost growls, aren't helping. "Shrimps…" She trails off as Amy slides her hands from her hips, slowly tracing her nails up and across Reagan's stomach, getting dangerously close to the bottom of that lacey bra before trailing back down again.

Amy, in a very short time, has become something of an expert at the art of the tease.

"Stay," she whispers into Reagan's ear. "Stay here with me. My mom's got work. Lauren's got school. We'll have the whole place to ourselves."

Amy punctuates that last bit with a gentle nip to Reagan's ear lobe between every word.

"You're just trying to skip," Reagan breathes, the words coming a little bit slower than usual as Amy runs her hands along her sides, slipping behind her and between them, cupping and squeezing her ass. "You're just using me as an excuse."

She's not  _entirely_  wrong, Amy knows, but it's one hell of an excuse.

"The whole house, Reagan," Amy says, slipping her hands back around and running one finger along the waistband of her very tiny - and already very wet - thong. "Every room. All to ourselves."

Regan shivers slightly, both at the words and the touch and Amy knows she's got her, she's hooked her. All she has to do now is reel her in.

"Where should we do it first?"

Reagan, trying to hold on as best she can, doesn't bite. Not just yet. "Do  _what_ , exactly?"

She thinks she's got her. Amy may have - especially lately - started to be more aggressive in the 'doing', but she's still a bit

(more than a bit, really)

reserved in the 'talking about the doing'. Reagan's quite sure that pushing her to be specific, to give details, to talk a good game instead of just playing one, will be enough to cool Amy's jets and she can go to work and Amy can go to school and

(Amy slides her hand down, under the fabric of Reagan's thong, brushing lightly across the spot just above her clit)

and why the  _hell_  would Reagan want to do  _anything_ but stay here, again?

"Do  _what_?" Amy asks. "You need me to spell it out for you?" Reagan, with the last of her willpower, nods. "Every room, Rea. Every room for me to fuck you in. And that's what I'm going to do.  _Fuck you_."

Reagan's knees buckle slightly and she has to hold on to Amy, her hands reaching back and grabbing the blonde's hips for support. Which only encourages Amy to grind against her ass a little harder, so maybe not the  _most_  supportive choice Reagan could have made.

"I know you said I was a fast learner," Amy says, her breath hot against Reagan's neck, her fingers still dancing against the older girl's skin, so close - so  _fucking_  close - and if she doesn't get closer soon, Reagan thinks she might lose her mind. "But," Amy says, her hand slipping almost imperceptibly lower, "I think I need more practice."

Reagan moans again as Amy's fingers brush just once against her clit.

"A  _lot_  more practice," Amy whispers, pressing herself tight against Reagan's ass. "A lot more practice at a lot more things."

The last of Reagan's willpower evaporates as Amy slips her hand fully between her legs, her palm sliding over Reagan's clit as one finger brushes over her entrance

"Your ass better not still be in bed, Amy!"

and Lauren bursts through the door without knocking and, seeing the empty bed and the empty room, barges right into the closet to tell Amy to make sure she wears something nice as they're bound to be getting stared at all day and then she sees them, Reagan with her eyes rolling back and her nails digging into the skin of Amy's thighs and Amy with one hand down Reagan's pants

(or  _not_  pants as the case may be)

and the other about to cup the older girl's breast and… well… OK… um… yeah.

"Shit," Amy says, yanking her hand from between Reagan's leg, the sudden movement (and the feeling of the entirety of Amy's hand running over her clit) enough to buckle Reagan's knees and Amy has to hold her up.

"I… you…  _fuck_."

Lauren is at something of a loss for words which, predictably, doesn't last long.

"Finish here," she says, waving a hand in their general direction. "And then get dressed. We  _will not_  be late."

She stalks off the way she came and Reagan - still wobbly, but the mood broken - and Amy both can't help laughing when they hear the tiny little blonde muttering in the hall about locking doors and that's what God made beds for.

* * *

Lauren insists on driving to school

(after a protracted Reamy good-bye kiss on the front porch, one that lasts so long, Lauren starts tapping her shoe and clearing her throat every ten seconds until the two of them finally come up for air)

because, in her words, "We need a united front."

Amy shifts in her seat uncomfortably. "You make it sound like we're going to war," she says. She's tired of war and battle and all of it. The party was bad enough, Amy really doesn't want to have to keep reliving it day after day.

"It's not war," Lauren says as she pulls into a parking spot far removed from everyone else. "But let's face it, we're going to be topics number one and two on the grapevine until someone else does something else more gossip worthy."

Amy knows she isn't wrong.

Shane greets them at the edge of the courtyard where he's clearly been pacing and waiting and pacing and waiting and as he sees them walk up he stares at Amy for a long minute, remembering the things she said to him

_you don't get a fucking say_

_you wanted all this_

and he isn't quite sure if she wants to see him or even if he wants to see her - Shane isn't good with guilt and he knows, deep down, he's got a lot to feel guilty for - but he loves Amy, truly, and he desperately doesn't want to lose  _another_  friend over this.

"Hey," he says to her and nods at Lauren.

"I'll leave you two alone," Lauren says, but Amy catches her by the arm as she starts to leave.

"United front, remember?" she says and Lauren nods. She doesn't leave but she steps to the side, giving Amy and Shane a moment of semi-privacy to stare at each other in silence.

Shane, predictably, caves first. "Look, Amy, I'm really -"

Amy holds up a hand to cut him off, surprising even herself with that little bit of assertiveness and, then, surprising herself even more with what actually comes out of her mouth.

"Is Liam OK?"

If Amy's surprised by what she says, Lauren and Shane are totally gobsmacked.

"Um.. yeah," Shane says. "Kind of. No broken jaw or anything and I think his pride is more damaged than his face." He smiles a little, remembering the pathetic look on Liam's face when he sobered up enough to remember what had happened. "He's not here today. He thought laying low for a few days might be a good idea."

"First one of those he's had  _ever_ ," Lauren mutters.

Amy nods and then - again - surprises them all by pulling Shane into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," she says. "Some of the things I said to you were…"

"Totally accurate and well deserved, if said in a slightly harsher tone than was maybe necessary?" Shane offers.

Amy grins and nods again. "Yeah," she says. "That." She glances passed him at the students milling about in the courtyard before first bell. Some of them openly staring, others glancing away when she looks, trying to pretend they're not waiting for some more shit to hit the fan.

Shane sees her looking. "The two of you have had quite an impact," he says. He nods at Amy. "Half the campus loves you for sticking with Reagan. The other half…"

"I killed Karmy," she says with a shrug.

Shane nods. "And you," he says, looking at Lauren, "may have just turned yourself into the ruler of all you survey."

"Wait…" Lauren says. "I did  _what_?"

A smile slides across Shane's face, one Amy knows all too well. That smile and the little 'proud papa' clap that follows it. "You're all anyone can talk about. So brave. So fearless. So heroic."

Lauren looks over at the courtyard in confusion. "Me?"

Shane nods. "You're one of them now," he says. "All this time, you really were an outsider just like the rest of us  _and_ you're the… how did they put it… first of your kind."

Lauren frowns. It's like she a new species. A fucking science project after all.

"Don't look so sad," Shane says. "Your interview with Vashti  _killed_. Internet searches for intersex in Austin probably tripled overnight. It doesn't matter  _what_  you are," he says. "You  _owned_ it and now they  _love_  you for it. You're their new Queen "

Amy can't help laughing at the confused look that flits across her sister's face. She reaches out and takes one of Lauren's hands and one of Shane's as well.

"Come on your highness," she says, tugging them both toward campus. "Time to go meet your subjects."

* * *

What was it Lauren said?

_Until someone else does something else more gossip worthy_

That someone else turns out to be Karma

(of course it does)

and that something else happens during lunch.

Amy spends most of the morning successfully avoiding her… well.. whatever the hell Karma is.

She doesn't want to call Karma her ex girlfriend or ex best friend or ex anything. It sounds so permanent and while maybe right now Amy can't see a way they will ever be friends again she still can't bring herself to rule it out entirely. Their BFF necklaces are in a small box, hidden at the back of Amy's sock drawer (which has mostly junk and almost no socks in it) and that's how Amy has decided she's going to think of their friendship as well.

Tucked away at the back of the sock drawer. Right where, someday, she'll stumble upon it again and maybe, just maybe, it will fit better.

It's a lousy metaphor, she knows, but it's all she's got.

Karma, according to Shane, spent all of Sunday sobering up at his house. He wouldn't let her leave, not in her condition

(hungover, confused, and - when she remembered it all - broken)

especially not after she woke up in the same room as Liam.

"She may or may not have spent the better part of the afternoon making him cry," Shane told Amy and Lauren. "I tried not to listen, but I'm pretty sure she compared sex with him to getting her ears pierced. Quick, painful, and with a very tiny needle."

Amy tried not to laugh. Lauren did enough of that for the both of them.

Eventually, Shane said, he drove Karma home. She'd only mentioned Amy once, as she was about to get out of the car.

"She asked me to make sure you were OK," he said. "She said she knew you had Reagan and Lauren and Theo, but…"

Amy nodded. That sounded like Karma. Or, at least, that sounded like  _a_ Karma, one she might have known and loved once upon a time.

Lunch is the first part of the day when Amy figures she won't be able to avoid Karma, or at least avoid seeing her. She considers, briefly, going up to the roof and hiding out, but Lauren's having none of that.

"You planning on spending the rest of high school on the roof?" she asks and when Amy shakes her head, Lauren nods. "Good, then get your shit and let's go, I'm hungry."

Entering the cafeteria is a surreal experience, to say the least. Amy is greeted by dirty looks a few smiles and more dirty looks. Lauren, on the other hand, walks into a giant thumbs up from Irma, a dozen or so free baked goods piled on her tray, and - most shockingly - a smatter of applause that eventually builds to a John Hughes movie-esque standing ovation.

Lauren, as she does, rolls her eyes.

"I will  _never_  understand this place."

She and Amy settle down at table in the back, where Shane has saved them spots. He has, not surprisingly, appointed himself as Lauren's consigliere and welcomes or dismisses the various students who come to seek an audience with their new Queen.

Amy is so amused by the whole thing

(and so determined not to look at the rest of the cafeteria for fear of accidentally making eye contact with one of the crazier scorned Karmy shippers)

that she almost misses Karma's entrance.

The dead silence that envelops the cafeteria is something of a give away though.

Karma spots her first and she stops, dead, right at the end of the lunch line, not moving again until some little freshman - who clearly doesn't get the importance of this  _moment_  to  _everyone_ else - bumps into her from behind.

She stumbles a little, but a hand reaches out, catching her tray and steadying her. It is, of all people, Tommy.

"You OK?" he asks and the concern is so genuine and it's the first nice thing anyone's said to her all day so Karma nods and lets him take her tray and lead her toward a table.

"Thanks," she says, softly and even that echos in the quiet cafeteria.

"No problem," Tommy says. "I'm just glad you're here. I was afraid you were gonna stay home or never come back to school again."

Karma looks at him, quizzically. Other than thinking lesbians were hot and - pathetically - helping Liam with the threesome, she was under the impression Tommy barely even knew she existed.

"I'm fine," Karma says and no one - especially not Amy - believes her.

"It would make sense if you weren't," Tommy says as he sets her tray down on the table. "I mean you got  _fucked over_."

A murmur of agreement runs through the cafeteria and Amy starts to regret not going to the roof after all.

"I mean, really," Tommy goes on. "I kinda expect that sort of stuff from Booker. Dude's a playa, right?" He belatedly realizes that maybe Karma's not the right person to be celebrating Liam's level of game with, so he moves on. "But Amy? Sleeping with your man? That shit's fucked up."

Amy feels Lauren start to stand next to her and quickly pulls her back down. She shakes her head at her sister. If they start shit every time someone says anything about what happened, they won't do anything else for the rest of their lives.

"It's not like that," Karma says. "You don't know her."

"I bet by the end of this year half the school  _knows_  her," Tommy says, a couple of his boys whooping it up next to him. "Hell, she bagged Booker and that hottie little girl lover from the party. She's gotta be a hell of a fuck, am I right?"

Amy swallows hard and feels Lauren and Shane each take one of her hands under the table.

"What did you say?" Karma asks.

"I said, Amy's hooked up with two serious hotties," Tommy says. "Sure, maybe she's just a little ho, but she must be  _good_  at it."

"That's what I thought you said," Karma says.

And then she knees him, square in the nuts.

Twice.

Tommy doubles over, clutching at the table as every guy - Shane included - winces in sympathy. Amy and Lauren both stare - unabashedly enjoying the sight of Tommy grabbing at his crotch and just about

(no, not about, he  _is_ )

crying on the floor of the cafeteria.

"Anybody else?" Karma yells, drawing everyone's attention back to her. "Anybody else got anything they'd like to say about Amy?" No one says a word. "That's what I thought," Karma says then turns on her heels and stalks out of the cafeteria.

"Holy shit," Shane mutters. "That was  _awesome_."

Amy disagrees. That wasn't awesome.

_That_ was Karma.


	28. Chapter 28

_**See A/N at end.** _

The email comes just as school lets out and Lauren immediately wishes it hadn't.

it's just one more complication, one more tiny little mess on the end of a messy day, full of staring people and whispers and Karma kicking her ex-boyfriend in the balls - at least she  _liked that_ part - and she just doesn't want to deal with right now, so she ignores the buzz of her phone and pretends it's not happening.

She's waiting out front of the building with Amy, both of them doing their best to ignore the brief looks, the longer stares, and the occasional point and gawk. Lauren wants to just tell them all to 'fuck off', Queen Bee status be damned, but she realized fairly early in the day if she did that, she'd do  _nothing_  else all day.

She still almost did it.

Amy's 'best' seems to be considerably better than hers which, Lauren figures, has at least a little to do with all the time Karmy was the center of the Hester universe. Once you've had half the school videotaping, texting, and snapchatting your every move for a few weeks, you probably get used to it.

Lauren wasn't  _surprised_ by all the attention, just by the volume and the duration and the fact that the worst of it - the ones she can't tell  _what_  they're thinking - isn't the students. It's the teachers and the parents (a surprising number of them dropping off and picking up today, driving by Amy and Lauren in the sort of slow pass she'd thought only the paparazzi and stalkers used), you know, the  _adults_ , the ones who should know better. At least with the students, Lauren's able to tell - the offered (but  _never_  accepted) high fives, the thumbs up, the ever increasing number of notes on her tumblr interview- but with the others… she can't tell if the stares are sympathetic, disgusted, or some odd mix of the two.

Penelope pulled her aside during tai chi for a lasted-too-fucking-long hug and an offer to use her office if Lauren ever needed 'a moment' and, OK, so maybe  _that_  - and the free smoothies and gluten free baked goods at lunch and the A on a test she knows damn well she bombed and the way a path cleared for her everywhere she went (though that might also have been out of fear of "Sugar Ray" Raudenfeld) wasn't  _all_ bad. Still, it's all a bit much.

"Can they just  _stop_ , already?" she asks Amy. "It's ridiculous. I'm going to need like seven showers tonight to wash away all the eye fucking."

Amy just shrugs and checks her phone. Reagan's ten minutes late and she's starting to get worried and even though she doesn't say anything Lauren can tell. "You sure you don't want a ride?" Lauren asks for the fifth or sixth or tenth time. "We can call Reagan, just tell her to meet us at home."

"I'm sure," Amy says. "Reagan's on her way. She's just… late." Except that Reagan's never late. Not even a little. She's early. If she's not early,  _then_  she's late. "We had to postpone camping until after Thanksgiving, so we're going out tonight instead and I don't want to waste time trying to end up in the same place. So, I'll wait."

"Date night?" Shane slips between them, a little too close to Lauren for her liking but at least she knows he's not going to stare or try to worship her (and who knew  _that_  could get so annyoing so quickly?) and he leers in that oh so Shane way, at Amy. "Tell me," he says, "will there be -"

Lauren cuts him off. "I swear to whatever gay God you believe in Harvey, if the end of that sentence is scissoring, I will  _cut_  you."

Amy laughs and Shane steps away slowly, holding a hand to his chest in mock indignation, feining wounded pride. "Me? Scissoring?" He huffs in Lauren's general direction. "I was going to ask if there would be doughnuts," he says.

He waits a beat.

"But now that you mention scissoring…"

Lauren drills him in the shoulder with her fist, maybe a little harder than she should

(it's been a long day and she didn't get a single chance to murder-death-kill Liam so his best friend will have to do)

and Shane laughs as he hops away, clutching his arm while Amy laughs and even Lauren smiles, just a little, and she almost thanks him because - as sad as it is - It's the most normal moment she's had all day.

"We're doing dinner at Planter's," Amy says, "and then stargazing and no, Shane, that's not a euphemism for anything."

And then Amy remember this morning in her closet. Nope, not a euphemism, she thinks. At least not  _yet._

Lauren slaps at her phone as it vibrates again, glaring at the tiny device until it stops shaking.

"Maybe if you just checked it, it would stop," Amy says but Lauren shakes her head.

"It's Mr. Turner," she says. "He said he'd be emailing out the partner assignments for the Sociology project and I really have no desire to end this day by finding out what cro magnon moron I got stuck with." She glares at Shane, who's keeping just out of her reach. "With my luck, it'll be you."

"Sorry to disappoint," Shane says. "But I'm paired with Oliver." He shudders a little at the thought and neither girl can blame him. Nu-Oliver is weird and icky and creepy, even more so than old Oliver and - tiny cranes notwithstanding - that's saying something.

Reagan pulls up, finally, and Amy bends to hug Lauren goodbye which is, apparently, a thing for them now. Lauren's a bit stiff at first but then relaxes into her sister's arms, forgetting all the idiots and their stares for just a moment.

"Have fun," she says into Amy's shoulder. "And bring me home a doughnut."

Amy and Shane both side eye her like she's lost her damn mind. "You want a  _doughnut_?" Amy asks.

" _You_  want a doughnut?" Shane adds.

Lauren pushes away and flips them both off. "It's Thanksgiving week. My boyfriend's out of town for the holiday, staring at me has become an Olympic fucking sport, and you, my supposedly loving sister, are leaving me here with  _him,"_  she nods in Shane's direction. "Make it two doughnuts.  _Normal_ ones," she says. "None of those weird fuckers you eat."

"Bacon, jalapeno, and grilled cheese are not  _weird_ ," she says earning her nothing but another Lauren glare. "Right. Two jelly filled it is." She hops in the truck and waves at both of them as Reagan pulls out.

Shane waves back and sidles up next to Lauren. They stand there that way, side by side and neither saying a word until Lauren's finally had enough. "Spit it out, Shane," she says. "Whatever it is running through your evil little mind, just get it out."

He hems and haws for a minute more before finally blurting it out. "Right," he says. "OK, so… I… I mean…" He glances around like he's afraid to be seen with her or - maybe - he's just hoping there's plenty of witnesses to keep him safe. "Are you… OK?"

There's a genuine concern and sincerity in his voice that Lauren can't ever remember hearing before. It's like the Shane everyone knows has been stripped away and all that's left is the sweet boy she can only assume he once was.

Like, you know, the day he was born. Maybe.

Infants can't be  _too_  evil, can they?

"Am I OK?" she repeats, not because she didn't hear him or didn't understand the question but because - and this comes as something of a shock to her - she hasn't actually thought about it until now.

Shane shuffles awkwardly in place, the moment becoming just deep enough to be uncomfortable. "I mean, everybody at the party paid so much attention to the Karmy implosion and to Liam getting knocked the fuck out," he says. "And I know you've got Theo, but he's not here and Amy has Reagan and Liam has me and Karma has…"

He trails off. He has no idea who Karma has.

And no idea how to feel about  _that_.

"I'm the new Queen, remember?" Lauren says quietly. "I've got all I ever wanted. Why wouldn't I be OK?"

"Right," Shane says, the sweet boy gone and the Shane Lauren's known all along back in place, like sliding a mask down. "It was a stupid question. Don't know what I was thinking. I'm just gonna… yeah.. I'll, uh, see you."

Lauren will never be quite sure why she does it. It's not like she likes Shane, not really. They've got their little frenemy thing going and it works - for both of them - and why mess up a good thing, right?

Maybe she feels bad for the way he got caught in all their crossfire the other night.

Or maybe she hopes he'll report back to Liam and tell him she's doing just fucking fine thank you very much hottie doucheface.

Or maybe, just maybe

(most likely)

it's because of all the words said about her that day, of all the times her name tripped off someone's lips, of all the people who felt the need to discuss, dissect, and disemble about her today?

He's the only one to  _ask_.

And that has to count for  _something_ , right?

"Shane," she calls out and he stops, turning to face her, looking for all the world like he's expecting to get his ass kicked. "I'm OK," she says, realizing even as she says it that isn't a  _total_  lie. "And… thanks."

There's something about the way he looks at her, like he's warring with himself, trying to just accept it, this small bit of  _normal_  and not make some sort of snarky, sarcastic comeback. In the end, he nods at her with a small smile - maybe the most genuine one she's ever seen from him - before walking off toward the parking lot.

Lauren looks around. Everyone else is continuing on with their lives, some (most) still staring at her, but they all  _seem_  OK. She checks the sky. Not raining blood. She glances at the ground and confirms that, nope, it hasn't opened up and swallowed her whole.

Shane Harvey and Lauren Cooper shared a moment and the end times didn't arrive.

Her phone buzzes in her hand  _again_  and Lauren finally gives in, flicking at the email notification.

Well,  _that_  explains it. Her and Shane getting alone wasn't a sign of the apocalypse because  _this_  is.

_From: Turner_

_Subject: Project Partners_

_Cooper, Lauren. Ashcroft, Karma._

Well. Fuck.

* * *

It takes Lauren ten minutes and, eventually, two text messages to find her.

She starts by searching the usual spots. Locker. Courtyard. Even the art room, though she only peers around the corner for that one. She  _knows_  Liam isn't there, but she's not taking any chances.

Finally, Lauren caves. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her phone, as hidden as possible, is Karma's number. She doesn't even remember why she has it in the first place or even what she has it filed under

(she checks  _fake ass bitch_  and then  _heartbreaking ho_  before finally stumbling on  _HER,_ all caps, like a fucking warning sign: dial only under penalty of death)

but she has it and she may as well make use of it. Lauren knows they're going to have to work together - not on the project, oh  _fuck no_  - but it's going to take both of them to convince Turner to change their partners.

For some odd reason, Lauren's got the sinking feeling even that's not going to be enough. Turner's new to Hester (rumor has it he's got an eye on being principal) and he's a hardass, but the book, law and order type.

That would work so much better, Lauren knows, somewhere else in Texas.

_Anywhere_  else in Texas.

She also knows that last week she would have been his favorite student, the one he could leave in charge when he had to step out of the room, the one he'd know he could trust. But that was  _last_  week. And, as much as Lauren hates it, her life has become divided into everything before the party, before her tumblr outing, and everything after.

Last week, she and Turner might have made a nice little matched set. But she's an outcast now. And not just  _any_  outcast. She's their Queen.

(Though she's still waiting - impatiently - for any of her Queenly privileges to kick in.)

Lauren's hope - and it's a faint one, she knows - is that the Queen Bee and the Drama Queen can, for one brief shining moment, use their powers for a unified cause and convince Turner that it would be in their - and everyone's - best interests to switch partners. But for that to work, she needs to find - and talk to - Karma.

She taps out a quick text, skipping the pleasantries, assuming that Karma has already read the email.

_L: Where are you?_

The answer comes back a minute or so later, just enough time to make Lauren even more aggravated.

_HER: Roof._

She takes the stairs two at a time which, given her size, is saying something, and bursts out onto the roof, taking only a moment to spot Karma by the edge.

"Don't jump," Lauren says, hoping she sounds at least sort of sincere.

"Why?" Karma replies without turning around. "Would you rather push?"

Clearly, whatever loyalty to Amy was behind Karma's attack on Tommy's nethers in the cafeteria doesn't extend to her and Lauren is almost grateful. This is going to be hard enough without having to be fake nice to Karma.

"We need to go see Turner," Lauren says, leaning against the door to the roof and holding it open. Clearly, she doesn't intend to be here any longer than needed. "We have to get him to switch our -"

"I already tried," Karma says. She's sitting on the edge with her feet planted firmly on the roof itself, staring down at the front courtyard of the school.

"And?" Lauren asks, even though she's pretty sure she already knows the answer.

"And I begged," Karma says. "I pleaded, I cried. I even told him about the party." Karma's phone buzzes in her hand and she ignores whatever it is with a simple swipe and without looking. "We're stuck with each other."

Lauren steps onto the roof, letting the door swing shut behind her. Clearly, this is going to take a minute.

"He really thinks that's a good idea?" she asks. "Or was he just  _trying_  to be a dick?"

Karma makes a noise that sounds, vaugely, like a chuckle. "Both, I think," she says, "Penelope was with him when I got there and she was reading him the riot act about something, I heard 'art' and tuned out, but I think he wanted to show her he could be understanding, and that was the only reason he even listened to me."

If Karma leaves out the other parts of their conversation, the ones where Turner mentioned an opportunity for healing and a chance for her to learn some academic - rather than social - focus from a better student while also helping Lauren to 'heal' and remember 'who she really is'?

Yeah, she can be forgiven. She'd prefer to  _not_  be pushed off the roof today.

"Look," she says. "You don't have to worry about me, OK. I'm not going to screw up your GPA or anything." Her phone buzzes again and she ignores it  _again_. "At this point, school is…"

Karma stops herself and lets out a long slow breath.

"Never mind," she says. "I'll do my share of the work and you'll get a good grade and let's leave it at that, OK?"

Sure. OK. Right.

Except… no.

"School is what?" Lauren asks. And really, she isn't asking and she fucking knows it. She's pushing. And really, it isn't surprising. She's spent all day getting stared at, whispered about, pitied, and reviled.

Anyone would be itching for a bit of a fight. And Lauren? She isn't just  _anybody_.

"I said, never mind, OK?" Karma stands and her phone buzzes again and Lauren can see it on her face - the momentary flash of hope and then anger and then it all makes sense.

"Liam, right?" she asks, nodding at the phone.

"None of your business," Karma says. "We can figure out how to work on the project - "

Another buzz and another flicker of something crossing her face.

"He doesn't know how to take a hint, does he?" Lauren asks. "But then, judging from the way your face lights up every time…"

For the first time since Lauren stormed onto the roof, Karma looks at her and the tiny blonde gets a full view. Karma's eyes are red and bloodshot and Lauren's pretty sure she's not wearing even a drop of makeup. Her hair looks fine because, well, it's Karma's hair (yet another reason Lauren's always hated her) but that doesn't change the overall picture.

And that picture ain't pretty.

"Fuck you," Karma says and she - and Lauren - wishes there was more bite to it, more anger, more… life. "We have to  _work_  together but that doesn't give you even the tiniest right to -"

Another buzz. And Karma squeezes her eyes shut and the life just flushes out of her and she leans up against one of the large air vents on the roof.

And Lauren's reminded of the way she leaned like that, the way she collapsed back, her body just too weak to fucking hold her.

Theo caught her.

_you've got Theo, but he's not here and Amy has Reagan and Liam has me and Karma has…_

"Karma?"

The other girl shakes her head and squeezes her phone. "Every time," she says. "Every fucking time, I think it's her. And every  _fucking_  time, it's him."

Lauren doesn't ask about 'her'. She really doesn't have to.

"The first twenty times, I checked the message," she says. "I counted. Twenty. I kept thinking it would be… her. I mean, I'm not stupid. I  _knew_  it wouldn't be and even if it was, it wouldn't be like everything was OK again."

Karma slides down along the air vent until she's squatting on the roof, her hands clutching the phone between her knees.

"I just thought maybe… maybe she'd just want to check on me. Maybe she'd be worried a little, you know?" Karma tips her head back against the vent,eyes blinking against the tears. "You must think I'm the biggest fucking idiot ever."

"I've  _always_  thought that," Lauren says, just enough of the usual edge missing from her voice that Karma takes notice. "But I never once… OK, maybe once… but I  _know_  you love her. As fucked up as your version of love may be."

Karma sniffles out a laugh. "Thanks," she says. "I think." The phone buzzes again and Lauren moves across the roof, plucking the device from Karma's hands and turning it off.

"Don't mention it," she says, the sight of Karma's lock screen - that fucking Wizard of Oz photo of her and Amy - blinking into nothingness. "Really. Don't mention it."

She drops the phone back into Karma's hands and turns for the door. And, just like with Shane, she'll never be quite sure why she does it.

"We can start working on the project right after the holiday," Lauren says. "At the library. And  _your_  house."

"OK," Karma says, nodding as she slowly turns the phone over and over in her hands.

Lauren opens the door and the words tumble out before she can stop them and fuck Amy and Reagan for giving her a heart. "Karma?" The younger girl's head pops up and she stares at Lauren through slowly drying tears. "You need a ride?"

* * *

Reagan's freaked out and Amy has no idea why.

Given everything that's happened lately, about a thousand thoughts run through her head - none of them good - and each one worse than the one before it. Amy's not sure when, if ever, things are going to get back to normal, when every little thing will stop seeming like it's something so much bigger, when she's going to stop looking for trouble in even the most innocent of things.

Soon, she hopes. Probably never, she thinks.

She asks Reagan what's wrong, but the older girls smiles (like she thinks Amy hasn't learned her  _fake as hell_  smile yet), says it's nothing, and takes Amy's hand in hers - a patented Reagan distraction move.

(Amy can't help it if feeling Reagan lacing their fingers together still makes her heart race like it's the first time.)

Amy's seen that look on Reagan's face before, in her own mirror for months. She used to practice it every day, trying to make it as convincing as possible so she could fool Karma.

_That_  took a little less effort. Maybe Karma didn't  _want_  to be fooled, but she wasn't actually looking, either.

Dinner at Planter's is fine but strained to the point where Amy can barely enjoy her own burger, much less the three-quarters of Reagan's she eats as well. The older girl just keeps staring out the window, answering Amy's questions with one or two word responses, smiling a lot, but it never reaches her eyes and when she excuses herself to use the restroom, Amy worries - just for a second - that she won't come back.

Jana comes to clear their plates and lingers a little longer than necessary. "Everything OK?"

Amy's sure she means the meals and the food and the service (and OK, she knows that's probably not what Jana means  _at all_ ) and she's the doughnut lady and Amy just can't help it.

"I don't know," she says.

Jana smiles at her - and if the goodness and deliciousness of doughnuts could be an expression, Amy's sure that smile would be it - as she clears their plates. "She's not quite herself tonight, is she?"

Amy shakes her head. And that's just it. Reagan's not  _herself_. Amy's seen her upset before, obviously, she's seen her sad and angry and annoyed and plain old fucking exhausted. But this isn't  _any_ of those. This is different and Amy has no clue what to do with different.

Jana pats Amy on the shoulder as Reagan returns to the table. They collect Lauren's take out order and Reagan's milkshake and head for their park. On the way down the hill, Reagan grabs some blankets and pillows from the back of Lightning so they can be comfortable while they stargaze.

And Amy wonders when they'll really be comfortable ever again.

The first half hour or so almost lulls Amy into forgetting anything is wrong. She curls into Reagan's side, her girlfriend's arm wrapped around her, fingers dancing lightly against the exposed skin of Amy's arm. If there was ever a moment when Amy worried she made the wrong choice or doubted herself or them, these are the moments that reassure her. Tangled up with Reagan, the rest of the world forgotten and all that matters is them.

She wishes it could be that way always.

But knows it can't.

Slowly, but not so slowly that Amy doesn't notice it, Reagan shuts down. She stops pointing out the constellations or teasing Amy when she thinks a plane going over in the distance is a shooting star. Her grip on Amy falters and her fingers don't dance.

Amy shudders and it's not from the cold.

"What's wrong?" Amy asks. "And don't tell me nothing."

Reagan pulls her arm from Around Amy's shoulder and sits up, pulling her knees to her chest.

"Did I ever tell you about holidays with my mom?"

Amy shakes her head. She can count the number of times Reagan's talked about her mom on one hand, the number of time  _she's_ talked about her dad on the other, and still have a handful of fingers left over.

"She loves the holidays," Reagan says. "All of them. Even the stupid ones, like Arbor Day, as long as it has 'Day' in the title, she'll celebrate it."

Amy scoots a little closer - slightly relieved when Reagan makes no effort to move away - and listens.

"The last one I spent with her was a fourth of July. It was like a month into dating Anna and my mom invited me to her and the new husband's party." Reagan smiles, just a little, at the memory. "I'll say this for them, they knew how to throw a party."

If this is one of the few times Reagan's talked about her mom, it's one of the even fewer ones she's said something nice.

"There were so many people there. My mom's family. The new husband's family. Friends. People I knew from our old neighborhood. A lot more people that I didn't." Reagan stares up at the sky, squinting into the dark. "And then there was me. And Anna."

Amy rests one hand on Reagan's back, slowly tracing circles through the fabric of her hoodie.

"I don't think I've ever answered that many questions about my orientation in my life," Reagan says. "Not even the first time I met Shane."

Amy chuckles and rests her head on Reagan's shoulder.

"I hadn't even thought… I don't know. It was just so obvious to me, you know?" Reagan says " _I_ knew who I was. I had no doubts, no confusions, nothing. But they kept asking and asking and asking."

Amy remembers the barrage of questions from Farrah after she got home from the Homecoming Dance. She hadn't had many answers and probably wouldn't have even if she and Karma hadn't been faking it.

"My grandmother cornered me in the kitchen," Reagan says. "I hadn't seen her in months and haven't seen her since. But she kept pushing. She kept asking me what if I met a nice boy, a good boy, the kind of boy who could provide and give me beautiful babies and be everything to me that my grandfather had been to her."

Amy's hand stills against Reagan's back and she slips her arm around her. Reagan's stiff and doesn't yield to the embrace but she doesn't pull away either.

"There's like three moments in my life that I'm ashamed of," Reagan says. "And  _that_ one… I told her I'd 'think about it'. If I ever met a nice boy, I'd 'think about it'."

Reagan lowers her head and Amy knows she's crying but she knows she doesn't want her to see it either.

"Three words," she says. "Three fucking words and I spit in the face of everything I  _am_ because there were too many voices and too many questions and too many people asking me if I was sure." Reagan wipes at her face with her sleeve. "If I was  _fucking sure_."

Amy feels tears pricking at the backs of her eyes but refuses to let them fall. This isn't about her.

"I stopped at your house today," Reagan says. "Your mom wanted to ask me some questions about the menu or something. She was running down the guest list."

And it all clicks. It all makes sense.

"I guess Lauren's got family coming in from Dallas and your aunt and uncle from Houston are coming," Reagan says. "And your mom's cousins and your Nana and some of them are bringing dates…"

So many voices.

Too many questions.

"And none of them know, do they?"

Amy doesn't have to ask 'know what?'. "No," she says softly. "I mean, I don't think so. I don't think my mom has told anyone."

Reagan nods. "Maybe Shane should take lessons on not outing folks from Farrah." She means it as a joke but it falls flat, sinking silently to the grass.

"Reagan…"

The older girl tips her head back and looks up at the sky. "I've known I was gay since I was old enough to understand what it meant," she says. "And I said I would 'think about it'. And I was fucking  _sure_."

Amy doesn't hesitate - and for the rest of her life, she'll be so fucking proud she didn't - before she speaks.

"So am I."

Reagan turns and looks at her and Amy can see it all over her face. She's happy, relieved, and yet…

"No, you're not," Reagan says. "And honestly, I don't care. I never have. I didn't care when you told me about Liam and I don't care if you…"

She turns, slipping her legs around Amy and taking the blonde's hands in hers.

"If you never, ever use a label in your life, Shrimps, I won't care," Reagan says. "You're not Shelby and I know that, I knew it even before you verbally bitch slapped her that night at the club. I  _know_  I'm not a phase."

Amy's given up on holding back the tears.

"But they're gonna come at you," Reagan says. "They're gonna ask and pressure and suggest and…" She squeezes Amy's hands in hers. "I was sure and it made me crack."

"And you're afraid the same thing will happen to me?" Amy asks. "That I'll say something like that?"

Reagan shakes her head. "No. I'm afraid you'll  _feel_  it. After everything we just went through, after all the pain and wreckage and  _shit_  being with me has brought you…" She stares at the ground, unable to meet Amy's eyes. "I'm afraid you'll just realize how much easier it could be."

Amy feels her girlfriend shake as the sobs rip through her and it's almost enough to break her.

Almost.

But if there's one thing the last few days taught Amy, it's this.

She's stronger than she knows. And right now, this time? It's her turn to be strong for both of them.

Amy stands and Reagan looks up at her and the blonde can see the fear written all over her girlfriend's face. She holds out her hands and Reagan takes them, letting Amy pull her to her feet.

"First of all," Amy says, "my family and Lauren's family and all their friends and dates and whoever? Fuck 'em."

Reagan starts to say something but Amy silences her with a kiss. Soft and sweet and tasting of their tears.

"Second of all?" Amy says, breaking the kiss. "Give me your keys."

"My keys?"

Amy nods and Reagan takes the keys from her pocket and drops them into Amy's outstretched hand.

"You're right," Amy says. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of  _so_  fucking much in my life it's not even funny. But I am sure of something. Absolutely, one hundred percent, not a drop of doubt in me sure."

She takes Reagan's hand and leads her up the hill to Lightning, ushering her into the passenger seat and buckling her in before she leans in and presses another kiss - a little harder this time - to the older girl's lips.

"I know my label, Reagan," she says. "If anyone asks, I know exactly what my label is." Amy kisses her again, cradling Reagan's face in her hands. " _Yours."_

Amy shuts the door and walks around to the driver's side, hopping up behind the wheel.

Maybe she doesn't know  _exactly_  who she is. But she knows she's Reagan's. And she's going to prove it.

_**A/N: So I know some folks have been asking if I was going to stop writing this or make it Karmy since the break up is here on the show. And to answer those questions: No and Hell No. I did think about ending it since Reamy isn't going to be together anymore. But... ninety-five percent of the fics for FI are for a couple who've never been together (not yet, anyway) so that little fact shouldn't bother me. And I said before (many many many times) this story will NEVER be Karmy in any way other than friendship. You want Karmy from me? Read Giants, it's the closest you're going to get. So this (and Bartender and Giants) aren't going away and Work in Progress will be continuing for those who might want something non Reamy from me.** _

_**  
**_


	29. Chapter 29

_**A/N: I might actually know where this is going. I'm as surprised by that as you are.** _

It's a tale of two texts.

Farrah and Bruce don't, as a rule, text much. Bruce doesn't like it, isn't good at it, and really? He hates his phone. He only has it for work and because Lauren insisted - in that Lauren-ly way that makes him do anything she says - that he "join this century and retire that damn flip phone."

"Language, Show Pony, language," he'd said.

And then got an iPhone (and don't ask him which) the next day.

Farrah, on the other hand, is (unhealthily) attached to her phone. She updates her station-sponsored Facebook page on it, keeping her fans - just under 1,000 the last time she checked

(half an hour ago)

updated on her, the behind-the-scenes action at the station

("That evening news team is such a bunch of scamps! Always pretending they're trying to sneak into my dressing room!")

and, even - on occasion - the weather.

They live in Austin. It's hot. It's dry.

Forecast calls for more of the same.

She's got a Twitter ( FarrahRC, of course) though she only tweets a few pictures (her new hairdo had her followers - 750 at last check - all a twitter. Get it? A twitter?) and links to her still unfortunately infrequent human interest stories. She even had, briefly, a tumblr.

She deleted it within a day.

That place was scary.

Amy has turned her into an unapologetic Words with Friends addict, even if she does lose every game - Amy kicks her ass on the regular, even after Lauren showed her the cheat sites - but Farrah doesn't care about winning and losing. It's fun and it lets her use a bit of her brain.

Sometimes, Farrah forgets she's an actual meteorologist. Degree and everything.

But texting is weird and disconcerting to her and she generally avoids it whenever possible. "It's impersonal," she told Amy (and she can't, for the life of her, get the hang of emojis) " and if I'm going to talk to someone, I want to talk to their face. Or, you know, ear, if it's on the phone and stop laughing at me, you know what I mean!"

Bruce only gets texts, usually from Lauren, but he never writes back and she never expects him to.

So, when they're sitting on the couch enjoying a rare weeknight of peace and quiet before they have to head to the airport to pick up Farrah's mother, and both their phones buzz simultaneously, it's a bit… odd.

Bruce, once he can figure out how to access it - he swears that damn icon moves every time - reads his message.

"Huh," he says.

Farrah opens hers as well, her eyes going wide as she reads.

"Hmmm…" she hums.

They lock eyes along the length of the couch. Bruce holds his phone out and Farrah takes it, tossing him hers and they both read.

Show Pony: At Karma's house working on project for school. Won't be late. Do Not Tell Amy!

Amy: I need Nana's flight info. I'll pick her up at the airport when she gets in.

Bruce looks up first. "I thought Amy was out with Reagan?" Farrah stares at him for a moment with a look that is eerily similar to the ones Rebecca used to give him when he was being, as she put it, a little slow on the uptake.

Sometimes he thinks his late wife and his current one would have gotten along really well.

He thinks on it for a moment. "Oh," he says and then, as the light bulb switches on fully, "Oh."

Farrah nods, her mind envisioning every which way this can possibly go wrong and there are so many.

"She's going to do it at the airport?" Bruce asks. "That's actually smart," he says and Farrah's eyes narrow in confusion. "Nana's not the type to make a scene in public, unless they served her on the plane, and then well…" He trails off at the panic stricken look on his wife's face.

Nana plus air travel plus those tiny little bottles of booze plus Amy plus Reagan…

That's too many pluses that all add up to one big minus.

But Farrah knows she's got only herself to blame for this. She was the one who invited Reagan and her family to dinner. And she didn't do it expecting Amy to keep their relationship a secret, she would never ask that of her.

Well… not anymore, at least.

"It could be worse," Bruce says and Farrah's not sure she can even imagine that. "Nana could meet Reagan like you did."

You must be Amy's mom. I'm Reagan.

Farrah has to cough to cover the snort she lets out at the mental image of her mother meeting Reagan in her barely there bra, shuffling across the bed with a half naked and utterly mortified Amy behind her.

Oh… to be a fly on the wall for that.

"You going to send Amy the info?" Bruce asks, snapping his wife back to reality. He watches as Farrah deliberates. He knows she wants to protect Amy - just as he always wants to protect Lauren - but he also knows that sooner or later, Amy's going to have to deal with this on her own.

Farrah, in the end, thinks the same.

She reaches behind the couch, collecting the pile of paperwork on the coffee table and flips through it until she finds the pages she's looking for. She taps the info into her phone, hesitating for just a moment before pressing 'send'.

The deed done, she looks to Bruce. "Do we have any wine?" she asks. "I think we're going to need wine."

* * *

Lauren settles on the edge of Karma's bed and immediately regrets it.

It isn't that the moment she touches the bed all she can see is Liam and Karma and naked and moaning and writing and…

Yeah. It is that. It's exactly that.

Ugh. Kiam sex.

Double fucking ugh.

She stands, quickly, but not quickly enough that Karma notices, which really isn't much of a shock because Karma, Lauren's realizing, is pretty far past noticing much. The redhead said all of five words on the drive from school.

Left. Straight. Turn here. Last house on the left.

OK, maybe nine words.

They've been here ten minutes already, which is ten more than Lauren planned on and five of that was spent meeting Molly and Lucas

(Lauren understands so much more about Karma now)

and they've finally made it to Karma's room and she's ostensibly booting up her laptop so they can at least start the project but it's taking like a year to come on and that's giving Lauren way too much time to look around and/or imagine things she'll likely have to find some way to bleach her brain of later.

"Sorry," Karma mumbles, glaring at the computer. "It's old. We can't affo… it's been a while since...it's old," she says again. "It sometimes take a while."

Lauren nods, to be polite more than anything, and wanders the room (not that she can really take more than three or four steps in any direction, but she needs to get away from the bed) and stops in front of Karma's mirror, her eyes slowly tracking over the dozens of pictures surrounding the glass.

Karma and Amy. Just Amy. Karma and Amy and Molly and Lucas. Just Amy (again) (and again) (and again).

Not a shot of Liam in the bunch.

Lauren shakes her head, wondering how the hell Karma never saw it till the night of the party.

"You can go ahead and say it," Karma says from behind her. She's running two fingers along the trackpad on the laptop and staring at the still blank screen. "Go ahead and tell me what an idiot I've been."

"I wouldn't say idiot," Lauren says. "Oblivious, maybe. Selfish, definitely. Insecure, confused, reckless, impulsive -"

"I get it," Karma snaps. "Sorry," she says. "I'm still a little…" She shrugs, not the tiniest but sure what she is.

"I think we all are," Lauren says, her eyes settling on a picture from the wedding. They look so happy.

Karma fidgets with the laptop, trying to muster some courage. "Lauren…" she trails off. "Look," she says, "for what it's worth, and maybe it's not worth a thing, but… I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what Liam did to you."

Lauren grips the back of the chair in front of Karma's mirror, squeezing the wood tightly and counting to ten.

She could count to a hundred and it wouldn't matter.

"Don't," she says and Karma worries that she's said the wrong thing and has just made everything so much worse but then Lauren continues. "Don't you ever apologize for that son of a bitch."

Lauren turns and Karma sees tears in her eyes but she doesn't say a thing.

"You are not my favorite person," Lauren says. "And you never have been. And yeah, I ripped into you at the party and I still think you need to stay the hell away from my sister."

The fact that Karma doesn't correct her, doesn't even try to add in the 'step', well, it doesn't go unnoticed.

But Lauren will think about that later.

"But as bad as I think you are for Amy, at least now," Lauren says, "I know… I know you would never have done what Liam did. You wouldn't have outed me like that. That isn't you, Karma, it never was."

Karma nods, slowly. "But he was defending me."

"He was defending his bruised ego," Lauren says. "Hottie Doucheface couldn't handle that everyone - even the supposedly straight girl - would choose Amy over him. And he lashed out at me and at Reagan and…"

"Amy," Karma says and she sees the look on Lauren's face as she says Amy's name. "He hurt her too. Not as much as I did but…" She shakes her head. "We should… um… just focus on the project, right?"

"Karma -"

Karma shakes her head. "No," she says. "It's fine. I need to learn… I've got to get better at leaving well enough alone." She swipes at her eyes with her sleeve. "And if you want to go, I understand. All we were doing was logging onto that website Turner sent us so it can 'randomly' assign us our topic. I can do it. I'll just text you the result."

Lauren's tempted. She really is. The thought of escape is sweet. Sweet enough that she can practically taste it. Except…

Where's she going to escape to?

Theo's out of town visiting family. Amy is out with Reagan and, Lauren guesses, she won't be home tonight. Leila and Lisbeth are still scarred from the party and not exactly talking to her.

So it's a night alone. Or with Karma.

Lauren sighs and pulls the chair around next to Karma as the computer beeps to life. "Let's see what we got," Lauren says as she ignores the small smile that creases Karma's lips.

The website, apparently of Turner's own design

(Lauren's heard he's got a kid who's good with computers but lousy with people)

takes a moment to load and then Karma types in their names and class code. The little hourglass fills on the screen and then it shifts, their project info filling the screen, instructions at the top and then, at the bottom, there it is. Their research topic.

The life of the American high school student revolves around certain rites of passage. None of these is more prevalent or pervasive as the "tradition" of the high school party. Examine the impact of the party on the social structure amongst teens and explain why, using well documented research and / or personal experience, the party is such a focal point and source of significant change in the lives of American teenagers.

"Fuck. Me," Lauren mutters.

Karma just stares at the screen and wonders how this could possibly get any worse.

Her mother sticks her head in the door at that precise moment. "Karma? Liam's here to see you."

That's how.

* * *

Reagan has her eyes closed because, if she's going to die, she really doesn't want to see it coming.

"You do have your license, right Shrimps?"

The squeal of Lightning's tires as they change lanes for what Reagan guesses is the tenth time in the last ten minutes

(she's got her eyes shut, remember?)

makes Amy's answer to the question totally irrelevant. License of not, Amy's still quite possibly the worst driver Reagan's ever met. And she's met her brother who still doesn't understand that a Corolla is not a humvee rolling through the desert of Afghanistan.

"Where are we going?" Reagan asks. She feels Lightning slow beneath her and hears faint sounds - public address announcements? - through the open window and she dares to open her eyes.

And immediately wishes she hadn't.

"No," she says. "No. No. No. Amy Raudenfeld you turn this truck around right fucking now."

Amy turns, instead, into the parking garage closest to the terminal, grateful that it's a Monday night so it's relatively empty because as bad as she is at driving? She's a thousand times worse at parking.

"Amy!"

She ignores Reagan - not an easy thing to do when the older girl's got a death grip on her arm and is yelling - and finds a spot near the entrance, within easy walking distance. Amy kills the engine and lets out a long breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Made it," she says, turning to grin at Reagan. "And in one piece, I might add."

From the glare Reagan's shooting her, Amy wonders if she might have spoken too soon on that last part.

"We are not doing this," Reagan says. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares straight ahead. If all that pissy attitude wasn't aimed right at her, Amy might find it too adorable to resist.

"You don't even know what this is," Amy says, a sense of pride welling up for both thinking of this and for surprising Reagan.

"Nana," Reagan says, fire in her eyes.

OK… so maybe no surprise.

"How?" Amy stammers. "How did you… I didn't say…" This isn't possible. "Is this some kind of lesbian ESP thing?" she asks. "Karma's mother says that a lot of gays are very perceptive and can sense…"

Amy isn't sure exactly how gay she is - or if there's even some kind of measurement - but she's sensing pretty damn clearly right about now.

"So," she says. "Not lesbian ESP."

"I told you," Reagan says. "I talked to your mother today. She mentioned that she and Bruce were picking Nana up from the airport."

"Oh," Amy says simply.

(Lesbian ESP sounded so much cooler.)

"Well," Amy says. "They were. And now they aren't. And we are." She unbuckles and climbs out of the truck but Reagan is faster and she's out too, meeting Amy at the tailgate.

"No," she says, again. "We're not. I'm not going to let you do this."

Amy may not be able to arch an eyebrow, but she can put a hand on her hip and cock her head with the best of them.

"You're not going to let me?"

Reagan regrets her word choice and takes a hesitant step back. "Look, Shrimps, I know what you're trying to do."

Amy shakes her head and brushes past her girlfriend, determination in her step. "No," she says, "I don't think you really do."

"You're going to come out of the closet to your homophobic grandmother in the middle of the airport in an effort to prove to me that what they think and say and ask isn't going to affect you."

It comes out in a rush and Reagan's winded by the end of it, but Amy stops, just for a moment, her foot tapping on the pavement.

She looks back at Reagan. "No," she says.

"No?"

Amy shakes her head. "I'm going to come out of the closet to my possibly homophobic grandmother in the middle of the airport," she says. "But not to prove anything to you. I'm going to do it because I'll be damned if I'm going to let either of us spend one more minute worrying about anyone else having anything to do with us."

She takes a step back toward Reagan and the older girl actually backs up until she bumps into the side of Lightning.

"I kept us a secret from my mother, sneaking you in through the window," Amy says. "I kept us quiet from Karma for two fucking months because of how she might have messed things up."

"Amy -"

Amy waves her off with a hand. "Do you know what today was?" she asks. "Today was the first day in months I didn't have to sneak around, didn't have to hide my phone so no one saw my texts. I didn't have to makes excuses about going to talk to a teacher about some assignment I'd already finished because I didn't want homework to get in the way of our time together."

"Shrimps -"

Amy steps forward, putting her hands on the side of Lighting, bracketing Reagan.

"Today was the first day I didn't have to worry that someone would figure out what I was up to, that they'd realize there was even a you for them to know about," she says. "Do you have any idea how… fucking liberating that was?"

Reagan might have an idea or two.

"I know Amy, but -"

Amy rolls on. "I spent the whole day not knowing what to do with myself," she says. "I'd forgotten how to just be me and when I remembered…"

The smile on Amy's face is so big Reagan fears her cheeks might crack.

And then Amy does what she's wanted to do for so long, without reservation or fear. She kisses her, she kisses Reagan and it's not in her room or Reagan's apartment or at some Halloween party where she doesn't know anyone or on a group date with their little circle or tucked away safely in their park.

It's not for an audience of cheering high schoolers or gawking passerbys in the Hester hall. It's just for them and it's right there, in public, for the world to see and for Amy to not give a rat's ass what any of them think.

"So, are you my ride or is the airport the new hip makeout spot? I can never keep up with the ways you kids do things."

Right there. In public. For the world to see.

For Nana to see.

Amy breaks the kiss, her eyes squeezed shut. "That's what you were trying to…"

"Yeah," Reagan whispers. "I was trying." Amy's eyes pop open and Reagan grins at her. "But you were on such a roll."

She kisses Amy on the nose and the slips out of her embrace, ducking under the blonde's arms and steps around her.

"You must be Amy's Nana," she says, holding out a hand. "I'm Reagan."


	30. Chapter 30

_**A/N: Don't get used to this just a few days between updates... I'm just saying...** _

If there was one thing Lauren was sure she would never be caught dead doing, it was holding Karma Ashcroft's hand.

And yet, here she is, with Karma's hand in hers, hiding behind her bedroom door and the only thing she can think?

Fuck 'em

Fuck Liam Booker. Fuck Shane and Amy and Reagan and Theo and all the rest while she's at it. Fuck 'em all, cause this?  _This_  is all their fault.

Shane just  _had_  to out Karma and Amy. Reagan just had to fall for Amy  _and_  - as if that weren't bad enough - she has to be awesome too and give Lauren the kind of friend she hadn't had in years.

(Or  _ever_ , if she was really being honest, but you know what? Fuck honesty too. Just fuck it.)

And Theo… oh, she loves Theo, and he's the kind of man - like her father but with a bit more common sense - she can depend on. Except he's off being a good son and grandson and brother and she loves him even more for that, but he's not here and she is.

Holding Karma's hand.

So,  _fuck him._ And, most of all, fuck Amy. Fuck her for being a good sister and a good friend and - no matter how awesome it was

(and it  _really_  was)

fuck her for not knocking Liam  _literally_  into next week, so that there would be no way for him

to be standing here, on the other side of the door, perpetuating his douchiness.

Fuck 'em all. Fuck every last motherfucking one of them for making her care and for making her -  _her_  - a better fucking person.

Life was so much easier when she was just a bitch.

"Karma," Liam says on the other side of the door, "I know you don't really want to do this

(Lauren can't help wondering how many girls he's said  _that_  to)

so I'm just asking you to please -"

"No."

Lauren's amazed - and not just a little pleased - that Karma, so far, has had the good sense God gave her and has responded to every single thing Sir Douchealot has come out with in the exact same way.

No. Followed by a tightening grips on Lauren's hand, the same one she snatched up as Lauren scampered behind the door.

(And see? Lauren the bitch wouldn't have fucking hid, either.)

But  _this_  Lauren, this all evolved and better person and actually caring about others Lauren, well,  _she_  doesn't want to see  _him_. She doesn't want to hear his voice, breathe air that's been in contact with skin or exhaled from his lungs or even - if she could avoid it - know he exists anymore.

It isn't that she hates Liam.

OK, it is that she hates him. She  _totally_ hates him. Detests him. Wouldn't mind one single teeny tiny bit if the Earth swallowed him whole and then pooped him into the sun like the piece of shit he is.

Or… you know… something like that.

it's that even the mention of his name, even the thought of him - and she's had far too many of those in the last forty-eight hours - reminds her of that moment, of those words.

_Real girl. Science project._

And it isn't that Lauren hates remembering how the little fuckwit outed her to the entire school. It's those words, that fear - the one the rippled through her - the fact that in one single moment Liam had reminded her of every horrible thing she'd ever thought about herself.

The things Amy and Reagan and Theo - and, God help her, Shane - had helped her to forget.

So, no, Lauren has no desire

(is there such a thing as negative desire? Like less than zero desire? Minus infinity desire?)

to ever have anything to do with Liam fucking Booker again, as long as she lives.

Which is why she's hiding behind the door and holding Karma's hand and wondering how the fuck  _this_  happened.

_This_  is not the natural order of things. Even in their fucked up little circus family, this isn't normal.

Shane ran it down for her once, the pairings of their little dysfunctional Brady Bunch.

"There's the romances," he said. "Reamy and Shuke an Kiam and now, since you have Theo, there's Thauren."

Lauren remembers rolling her eyes but secretly smiling a little.

Not that she'd ever admit it.

"And there's the friendships," Shane added. "Karmy, obviously, and Shiam and Shamy."

Why the hell Shane was in so many of these ridiculous ships, Lauren never quite understood. He liked most people about as much as she did.

"And now, since you two are getting along, there's Cooperfeld - the sisterly ship -and, I suppose, you and I could possibly…"

He'd looked at her. She'd looked at him. And they never spoke of  _that_  again.

But check the list. Be like Santa and check that fucker twice.

There is, without a doubt, absolutely, positively, 100% no mention of… of…

_Larma_.

(And why, Lauren wonders, does every ship she's involved with have to sound like a bad sci-fi movie villain, an overpriced chiropractor, or some kind of wooly animal people always mistake for a camel?)

(Fuck Shane. Fuck him and his ships.)

There's no Larma and yet here she is.

"Karma, please," Liam's getting close to begging and, as much as Lauren would like to see him on his knees - his face right at kicking level and she's got her particularly pointy heels on - the sadness and desperation in his voice is almost enough to….

Nope. It's not. Not even close, actually.

"I just… I know you can't forgive me, I get that," he says - and really, Lauren wonders, if he  _gets that_  then why is he here? - "but I just… I need you to hear me out."

"No." Karma's resolve doesn't falter and neither does her death grip on Lauren's hand and the little blonde is sure she's going to have bruises come the morning.

"Come on, Karma," Liam says and there's a hint, just the smallest of glimpses, of anger in his supposedly apologetic tone. And if the way her grip tightens even more is any sign, Lauren knows Karma hears it too. "I know what I did -"

"Which?"

It's the first thing Karma's said that isn't 'no' since she opened the door and it seems to startle Liam (and Lauren) and throw him off his very well rehearsed apology / begging / I'm-Liam-Booker-so-you-have-to-forgive-me script.

"Which? Which what?"

"Which thing you did," Karma says and Lauren recognizes that tone

( _you think your family)_

and it's all she can do to keep from poking her head around the edge of the door and gleefully grinning at Liam and telling him how fucked he really is.

"Which thing?" Liam asks and it's  _so_  obvious that he wasn't prepared for this.

Join the fucking club.

"Well, let's see," Karma says. "There's the obvious - sleeping with my best friend. And, of course, lying about it for months."

"That was both of us and if you can forgive-"

Karma cuts him off without breaking stride. "And, maybe, there was breaking up with me at the party when, maybe, you should have been looking out for me. But," she says, "in all fairness,  _I_ might have broken up with you and even if we hadn't, you couldn't have been looking out for me."

"I couldn't?"

Lauren shakes her head behind the door. Such. A. Tool.

"No," Karma says (and there's that word again), "you couldn't. And let me tell you why."

Oh please, Lauren thinks. Please do.

"You," Karma says, "were too busy. Too busy taunting Reagan about her relationship was going to fail and some ridiculousness about not having a last name which, if you'd checked with me I could have told you was Solis because I  _fucking looked on Facebook_."

Lauren wonders, maybe for the first time, why she and Karma have never been better friends.

"And then," Karma rolls on, not even giving him a chance to speak. "You were too busy threatening Amy for some supposed plan she had to win me back which is about the dumbest thing anyone's said since Shane called me a lesbian because anyone who's spent more than five minutes with me and Amy knows."

"Knows what?"

"That  _I'm_  the planner, you fucking idiot."

Lauren has to dig her fingernails into her thigh to keep from bursting into laughter. Loud and joyous and celebratory laughter.

"And," Karma rolls on, "let's not forget what you did to Lauren."

Lauren's silent laughter dies in her throat. No, actually, let's forget it, she thinks. Forget it and bury it and never speak of it again.

"Seriously?" Liam asks and Lauren can  _hear_  the sneer. "You're getting pissed at me for Lauren? You  _hate_  Lauren."

Karma's grip falters and Lauren waits as the younger girl takes a deep breath.

"You know what Lauren said to me the other day?" Karma asks him. "She told me if I fucked things up for Amy, she'd drop a bomb on me so big that all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put me back together again."

Liam doesn't say anything. He knows the bomb, he lit the fuse.

"And she would have," Karma says. "She would have told me right there in the middle of that party that  _you_  fucked  _Amy._ " Karma's eyes flick toward the door and hold for a moment. "She would have destroyed me  _and_  you."

"But I stopped her," Liam says. "I shut her up.  _I_ dropped the bomb on  _her_."

He sounds almost proud and Lauren (and Karma) can't help wondering what the hell she ever saw in him in the first place.

"Yeah." Karma says. "You did." Her grip tightens again, just a hair, and she steps forward into the doorway. "But see, Liam, here's the difference. Lauren? She would have done it to protect Amy, to do for her sister what none of us thought Amy could do for herself."

Karma stands on her tiptoes, bringing herself eye to eye with Liam.

"And you?" she asks and slowly shakes her head, her voice growing softer. "We were already done. You knew I never felt for you what I feel for Amy."

Lauren does her best to not react to 'felt' and 'feel' cause, let's face it, Karma's on a roll.

"I had already kissed Amy and made a mess of everything," Karma says. "There was nothing left for you to save." Her grip tightens and she squeezes Lauren's hand. "You weren't trying to protect anyone but yourself."

" _She_ tried to destroy  _me_."

"Because of something you  _did_ ," Karma snaps. "Not something you  _are_. It's no wonder you and Shane are best friends. Neither of you has the first fucking clue how horrible it is to out someone."

Lauren - even if she'll never admit it - squeezes Karma's hand in hers.

"You went after Lauren for what she is," Karma says, "and all it did was make it crystal fucking clear, to me and everyone else, exactly what  _you_  are." She steps back, pulling her hand from Lauren's and gripping the edge of the door. "Not. Worth. My. Time."

The door slams shut and silence fills the room and Lauren, for just a moment, has the urge to bow before the awesomeness.

But then she has a better idea.

She steps out from her hiding spot

(never again)

and grabs the door, pulling it open and calling "Liam!" He turns back, the faintest of hopes crossing his face followed by confusion at the sight of Lauren, followed by total abject agony as her foot - and her particularly pointy heel - drills him right in the balls.

Lauren shuts the door as Liam crumples to the floor in the hall and she nods.

"Yup," she says. "Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all."

* * *

Amy watches, in almost silent reverence and awe, as her Nana - her  _grandmother_  - polishes off her second deep fried doughnut bacon burger.

While slowly perusing the daily doughnut list, trying to decide what 'delectable dozen' she's going to bring home.

She pauses, mid-bite, and glances at Reagan, sitting across the table from her, next to Amy.

"Do you think they have online ordering?" she asks. "And do they ship out of state?"

Reagan can only shrug and lean closer to Amy so she can whisper. "Well," she says, "at least now we know where you get it from."

Amy nods, mostly because she can't actually speak because, with the possible exception of outing herself on local TV, this is the most surreal thing she's ever experienced.

And she once had to clean croquembouche out of her hair.

Nana dabs delicately at the corners of her mouth with her napkin before smiling at the two girls who grin - weakly - back at her. "Reagan," she says, "you were so right about this place. Thank you for bringing me here."

"You're welcome," Reagan says. "Least I could do for Nana."

Nana laughs and Amy's pretty sure -  _absolutely_  sure, really - that it's the first time in years she's heard her grandmother laugh. She used to, Amy remembers, all the time. Her and Farrah and Jack…

and well that explains that.

"Reagan," Nana says, "do you think you could be a dear and go place my to go order?" The sweetness in her voice makes Amy nervous, but Reagan just smiles and says 'sure' and even agrees when Nana asks her to pick her out a milkshake too.

Reagan, unlike her girlfriend, knows a 'could you please make yourself scarce so I can talk to my granddaughter alone for a moment?' when she hears it.

All Amy knows is she and Nana are alone now and  _here it comes_.

"So," Nana says, folding her napkin back into its proper shape and sliding it under the edge of her plate. "Reagan seems nice."

The last person who said those words to Amy - those  _exact_  words - was Karma. And Amy's well aware how well that turned out.

Amy nods. "She is," she says and stops there.

The less she says, the better. Amy's learned that one too well of late.

"She's older though," Nana says, "am I right?"

Amy nods again. "Nineteen."

Nana purses her lips and Amy tenses for the blow. "Hmmm.. that's quite a difference at your age." She glances up at the counter where Reagan is animatedly chatting with Jana. "Still, there was eight years between your grandfather, God rest his soul, and I, so…"

Amy's not sure, but she thinks Nana might have just been… OK?... with the age difference.

Maybe. Possibly. Fuck all, she's so confused.

"Does she go to school?" Nana asks and Amy shakes her head, slowly, like she's considering lying but wasn't that the whole point of this little exercise? No more lies, no more secrets, no more giving of fucks?

Of course, that was before grandmother watched them make out in the airport parking lot. And before Amy got to endure the longest truck ride of her life and almost caused a crash when Reagan had said 'Oh, you're hungry? I know the best little place. Amy loves it.'

And definitely before she watched Nana take down two burgers like a T-Rex wiping out a family of monkeys.

"So," Nana says, drawing out the 'o', "she's nineteen but not in school." She taps one finger on the table and it's like the tick-tick-tick of a bomb. "Job?"

"Two," Amy says, excited to find herself on firmer - and better for Reagan - ground. "She's a waiter for Austin's biggest catering company. They actually catered Mom and Bruce's wedding, even though she wasn't there, but still, you remember how good that was, right?"

"You said  _two_?"

"Yeah," Amy says. "She's also a DJ."

"A DJ?" Nana repeats. "Like on the radio?"

Amy shakes her head. "No, like in clubs and dances and stuff." And why does something so cool and awesome and sexy

(not that Nana needs to think it's sexy)

sound so… ridiculous and non-adult when Amy describes it?

"Clubs and dances and stuff?" Nana asks and suddenly Amy's firmer ground is like quicksand all around her.

"She's actually really good at it," Amy says. "She's even got a couple of record labels interested in her which is awesome because, as much as she loves cater-waitering, what she really wants to do is be a music producer."

"Ah," Nana says, nodding with some kind of… is that understanding? "LIke that girl in  _Pitch Perfect."_

Amy's eyes grow wide. "You've seen  _Pitch Perfect_?"

Nana laughs, again, and it's more like a snort and Amy doesn't know who the hell this woman sitting across from her is.

But she's starting to like her.

"I live in a retirement community, Amy, not a cave. Not all us old folks sit around playing mahjong and remembering how it was 'back in the day'."

"I didn't mean… I mean… um…" Amy stammers.

Nana smiles and pats Amy's hand on the table. "I've seen  _Pitch Perfect_ and  _Pitch Perfect 2_ ," she says. "Though, just between us, if they seriously think they're going to make a third one, they need to cut back on Fat Amy and that Bumper idiot and just put Beca and Chole together already."

That settles it. This isn't real. Amy's driving was so bad, she and Reagan actually crashed on the way to the airport and this is all some twisted version of Heaven.

(It has to be Heaven. There's doughnuts.)

"Does she treat you well?"

"What?" Amy snaps back to reality. "Oh, yes," she says. "Very well. She's…" Amy looks up at the counter and Nana can't help noticing the involuntary smile that crosses her granddaughter's face. "She knocked a boy out for me this weekend," Amy says, shaking her head at how absurd that sounds. "Actually, it was more for Lauren but… I put her through a lot the last few days."

"Including  _this_?" Nana asks.

Amy nods. "Yeah. But no matter what I do…" She looks back up at Reagan who gives her a wink and blows her a kiss. "She stays," Amy says. "She'll always stay."

There's a moment there, a thick silence that falls between them and Nana knows and Amy knows that she knows that 'staying'?

That just might be the only thing that really matters.

"And what about Karma?" Nana asks, breaking the silence. "Do they get along?"

"No," Amy says without hesitation. "They really don't."

"And how does that make  _you_  feel?"

Amy fidgets with her napkin, torn and shredded and stained, not half as clean as Nana's still is.

"Amy?"

"It sucks," Amy finally says softly. "I wanted them to get along, I wanted both of them…" She looks to Reagan again and the smile she can't help contrasts with the tears in her eyes. "But I made my choice," she says. "And it was the right one. The right one  _for me_."

"You love her, don't you?" Nana asks and she knows the answer even before Amy nods. "Well, thank goodness," she says. "Not that I don't hope you and Karma patch things up someday, but I've been hoping you'd meet a nice girl and -"

"What?"

The word snaps off Amy's tongue a bit sharper than she'd like and she tries to calm herself and be a bit more clear.

"Wait….  _what_?"

Yeah. Clarity's overrated.

"You've been hoping I'd meet a nice  _girl_?"

"Not  _too_  nice," Nana stresses. "All the best love affairs need a little 'bad' in them. Your grandfather, for example, used to love to dress up -"

"Wait!" Amy practically yells

(and If there really is a God, Nana will  _never_  finish that sentence)

because she can't get past this one particularly sticky point. "You wanted me to meet a  _girl_? A. Girl. So you knew or thought or… knew… I was…" she waves her hands in front of her, realizing this is one of those points where actually having a label might come in handy.

"Gay?" Nana offers. "Or bi, at the very least?" Nana reaches across the table and takes her granddaughter's hand. "Amy, sweetheart, no girl looks at another girl like you looked at Karma for all those years unless she's at least  _a little_  gay."

Maybe that's my label, Amy thinks. At least a little gay.

"I'll be honest," Nana continues. "I was never sure if it was all girls or just Karma, but given your mother's horrible taste in men - Bruce notwithstanding - I was  _hoping…_ "

Amy just stares. And stares. And stares some more and when she's done with that, she stares a little more.

"You're OK with this?" she finally asks, though the answer to that is pretty obvious, but she needs to hear it, needs the words. "You're OK with me and Reagan and me being… whatever I am?"

Nana scoots out of the booth and slides over onto Amy's side, tugging her granddaughter to her. It's been far too many years since she's done this and she knows that's as much her fault as anyone's but maybe, Nana hopes, this is a chance for all of them.

"Amy, as long as the answer to 'whatever you are' is happy?" she kisses the top of Amy's head and wonders how she ever let them get this far apart. "Then yes, I'm OK with it. I'm  _more_ than OK with it."

Reagan peers over her shoulder at the two women sitting in the booth. She sees Amy clutching at Nana's blouse as she silently sobs and she starts to make for the booth, ready to kick some ass. But Jana catches her by the arm and shakes her head.

"Look," the doughnut lady says, nodding toward Amy.

And Reagan sees it. There's tears. Buckets of them (Amy never cries small) but then… there's the smile, the one on Amy's face and the one on Nana's and the way Nana is talking, so softly, into Amy's hair and Reagan sees her girlfriend hiccup as she starts to laugh through the tears.

Reagan turns away, giving them their moment. "Who'd have thought?" she mutters, pulling out a napkin from the dispenser and wiping at her own eyes. "Maybe we'll have something to be thankful for after all."


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving with Amy. And a bit of Reagan and a smidge of Karma and a surprise. And a note from me.

She's expecting it. And  _that_  doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

The doorbell keeps ringing and even though Amy's expecting it -  _waiting_ for it, actually, pacing by the front window and glancing out from behind the curtains every time she hears a car door slam - every ring, every  _single_  one, still makes her feel like she's jumping out of her own skin.

It probably doesn't help that every ring of the bell brings another parade, another boarding party sent to invade her home. One by one and two by two - or four by four in the case of her blonde jailbait cousins from Houston who travel everywhere in a fucking  _pack_  - they arrive, strolling through the door, walking right on in, like they own the place.

Her  _family_. And she really doesn't remember when that word started sending shivers down her back and making her stomach roll.

(And that's  _totally_ a lie. She remembers  _exactly_  when it happened.)

( _Because of you. I'm leaving because of you_.)

Yeah… maybe she remembers.  _Maybe_.

Every ring of the bell deepens the invasion, spreads them further and further into the house and it's like they're spreading it, spreading…  _life_ … through the place and it's the most alive she can remember the house feeling in years. Not since she was little, not since  _before_  (and she hates thinking of it as  _before_  and  _after_  but it really is that cut and dried) not since it was her and Farrah and Jack. Back then? The house was  _always_  alive, there was always that energy rippling through it, there were people - sometimes family, sometimes not - there every night, laughing  _real_  laughter and crying  _real_  tears.

Amy remembers nights she lay awake till three in the morning, listening to her father holding court downstairs. Nights when Farrah slipped into her room and curled up next to her on her tiny 'big girl bed', and Amy would pretend to fall asleep to ease her mother's mind, but she'd really be awake and listening and silently thinking that being a grown up must be the most awesome thing in the world.

And then she remembers the shrink Farrah took her to, about a year after Jack left, the nice old woman in the really faded cardigans who always smelled of blueberries. She told Amy her father didn't know all that much about being a grown up after all and all those nights she laid awake were probably why she wasn't sleeping much then, not without the TV or the laptop or someone (Farrah or Karma or, years later, Reagan) curled up beside her.

Amy told Farrah the nice old woman  _was_  nice, but everything she said, Amy already knew.

"Save your money," Amy said. "I'm going to college someday."

But now the house is buzzing again and it's  _sort_  of like it was back then, like a fuzzy-foggy reminder of what it used to be. There's a part of her that can't help wondering if this is what it's like every year, every holiday, every time there's people (people who aren't Karma or Shane or Theo or even Reagan) here and if, maybe, she just never saw it because she just didn't  _want_  to.

She's never embraced it, Amy knows that. She's hidden, every single time. Whether it was out on the porch - even on the coldest of days - drinking the non-spiked egg nog (with Karma) or sitting at the kiddie  _table_ refereeing the kiddie squabbles between her twin cousins Jordan and Jonathan so she didn't have to hear or see or  _deal_  with the 'grown-up' ones or just hiding in her room (with Karma) or running off somewhere else (Karma's) or just sitting in the corner and not talking to anyone because no one talked to her.

Maybe that was her fault. Maybe she just never wanted it to be any different so it never was but now, now Amy sees it and  _feels_  it. It's all right there, humming just under the surface, under the chit chat chatter and the holiday spirit and the 'how are yous' and the 'Happy Thanksgivings' and the 'when do we eats'.

It's different. It's new. It's unlike anything she remembers.

And she's sick of it in under five minutes.

But that damn bell keeps ringing and it's never the right person on the other side.

* * *

Amy makes it an hour - which is fifty-five minutes longer than she thought she would - before she cracks.

"Do you think Planter's is open?" she asks Lauren, stopping her sister as she's making her way by with a tray loaded down with hors d'oeuvres. "I could just text Reagan and have her and her family meet me there? And then you all can have your turkey and stuffing and cran…  _whatevers_ … and I can….not be here?"

Any  _other_ time Lauren might think the light and hope in Amy's eyes as she outlines her 'plan' (and  _clearly_  this is why Karma was always the planner) is cute. But this? This is  _Thanksgiving_  and there's  _family_  and  _guests_  and that is the sort of shit Lauren does  _not_  fuck around with.

You'd think, after the croquembouche, Amy would know that.

"Amy," Lauren says calmly (which is her most  _frightening_ tone), as she puts one hand on her sister's shoulder and turns her, pointing her toward the living room. "This," she says (still calm and still  _terrifying_ ), "is what you're going to do. You're going to march your ass into the living room."

"I am?" Amy sounds somewhat skeptical but Lauren's expecting this.

"Yes," she says. "And then you're going to  _sit_  your ass down on the couch and you are going to stop pacing your ass back and forth in front of this window." Amy glances back at her because she  _knows_  this is a 'do this or  _I'll_  do  _this_ ' kind of deal. "And if you don't, I'm going to  _kick_  your ass from here to Planter's and back again."

Amy considers for a moment. "I don't think you can," she says. "I knocked out  _Liam Booker_ ," she says, looking back at Lauren again. "I can take  _you_."

Lauren considers pointing out that, technically,  _Reagan_  was the one who knocked him out or that just three days ago  _she_  left him a crying heap in the Ashcroft's hallway so, really, beating up Booker isn't the best way to gauge your badassery.

But that's a discussion best left for another time (especially the part about her being in the Ashcroft's hallway and the whole holding of Karma's hand and Karma ripping Liam a new one and Lauren having a new, begrudging respect for the redhead) so, instead, Lauren holds up the tray of hors d'oeuvres so Amy can see it.

Tiny little shrimps wrapped in tiny little bits of bacon with a tiny little label affixed to the back of the tray.

_These are Amy's. Touch under penalty of Lauren_.

"Sit," she says to Amy. "I don't care  _where_ , just sit down and  _calm_  down and these are all yours."

Amy's eyes flick between the window and the tray and the door and the tray again and, finally, she drops herself into a chair by the kitchen table and stares up at Lauren expectantly.

It's  _bacon_  after all. And  _shrimp_.

Lauren hands her the tray and makes to leave (guests and family and polite conversation to be made) but Amy catches her by the arm. She holds up a shrimp, a tiny little meat wrapped peace offering (and Lauren knows the value of  _that_  coming from  _Amy_ ) as she pushes out one of the other chairs with her foot.

Lauren shakes her head. "You are such a dork," she mutters but she takes the shrimp and sits down anyway. The two of them stay there, munching their way through the shrimp (and about half a dozen more rings of the bell and  _still_  no Reagan) in a companionable silence neither of them could have imagined existing between them last year.

Amy's sitting but she isn't  _still_. Her knees jiggle like mad (and Lauren has to move the tray three times to keep it from jiggling right into Amy's lap) and she still visibly flinches every time the bell rings.

But, on the whole? She's had worse Thanksgivings.

Of course, the day is still young.

* * *

When even bacon fails to do the trick, Lauren knows she needs to resort to other methods.

Like talking.

"It's going to be fine," she says as she pops the next to last shrimp into her mouth. "Just remember, the hard part is over." She nods toward the living room where Nana is under siege from all the tiny little humans. " _She_  already knows and if you think she's going to let  _anyone_  talk shit about Reagan or you…"

Amy nods. She  _knows_  that. She's known it since Monday night at Planter's and since Tuesday night when she and Reagan took Nana to the movies and since last night when Reagan took Nana to dinner (by  _herself_ ) and Amy got to catch her  _grandmother_  sneaking in at two in the morning with purple streaks in her hair.

She scoops up the last shrimp, almost swallowing it whole. "I know," she says. "Hard part's done, Nana loves  _Reagan_ , nobody's going to have a problem with  _it_."

Lauren waits for the words (and the sentiment) to register with Amy's brain and send the message to her knees so they stop shaking.

"If you know all that," she says, "then what's the problem?"

Amy's eyes drift from Nana to the corner of the living room, right in front of the Wall o' Shrimps, to the easels someone's set up there, with the collection of family photos from holidays gone by, framed and categorized and brought as a present for Nana.

"It's not Reagan or me being gay, I'm worried they'll have a problem with," she says, standing up from the table (her eyes squeezing shut at  _another_  ring of the bell). "It's  _me_."

* * *

They're an hour late, which is really right on time (or so Farrah told her) and Reagan's standing on the Raudenfeld-Cooper front porch, her finger hovering over the doorbell.

She's been like that for a second or two. Or, you know, five  _minutes_. But she can't seem to bring herself to press it and she doesn't know why.

And  _that's_  starting to piss her off.

She'd been so worried they'd be late (which, of course, they  _were_ ) and she spent most of her afternoon nagging and hustling along behind Martin and Glenn, reminding them they had to go, and what to wear and how to behave.

"Don't tell anyone about Amy macing you the first time you met," she told Martin. "And Glenn… just don't."

"Don't what?" he asked.

" _Anything_ ," Reagan replied.

She was already pissed at him for being such a…  _Glenn_ … and making her work for it when she asked him to come. Martin had been easy to convince (as she knew he would be) but Glenn had given her no end of grief.

"There's gonna be turkey," she told him. "And football on the television."

Glenn was unimpressed. "Got that here," he said. "And  _here_  means no monkey suit and no monkey tie and no dancing like a trained little monkey for your new family."

Reagan had chosen to ignore the 'family' comment (that road led  _nowhere_  good). "That's a lot of monkeys," she said.

"Monkeys," Glenn said, "are the  _shit_. And at least with monkeys, you know what you're getting. They're gonna pick some bugs off you, throw some poop, and show you their ass." He thought about it for a minute. "Sounds like most family gatherings. Thanks, but no thanks."

"I'll pay you," Reagan tried but Glenn knew the state of her finances a little too well and, once he stopped laughing, he shook his head and said no. Again. "I'll wash your truck for a month," she offered.

Glenn actually considered that one. But then… "Get Amy's sister to do it," he said. "In a bikini. And then maybe we'll talk."

That Reagan actually  _thought_  - even for a  _second_  - of asking Lauren to do it was a clear sign of how desperate she was.

Almost as clear as her final offer.

"I'll go with you," she said. "To see mom. For Christmas."

Glenn had stopped dead (and so had Martin who'd been enjoying the show up to that point) and stared at her. There was something in his eyes Reagan didn't quite recognize and she was a little scared (fucking  _terrified_ ) he was going to take her up on it. But Thanksgiving at Amy's was  _that_  important.

"I…" Glenn paused and ran a hand through his hair. "You…" He looked over her shoulder at Martin, searching for some help but got nothing. "You don't have to do  _that_ ," he said finally, his voice cracking a little. "I'll go."

Reagan had thanked him and kissed him on the cheek (and if she also mentioned Amy's hot and possibly slightly slutty cousins from Houston would be there… well… )

Of course, all that work didn't mean anything if she didn't ring the bell.

So why wasn't she ringing the bell?

She's done this before, this whole waiting outside Amy's and not going in - though at least this time she's out of the truck - but she doesn't think the motherfucking mantra was going to help this time. Her finger hovers over the bell and she keeps telling it to push but it keeps ignoring her, like it knows better.

And when Reagan has a momentary flash of the  _last_  party she and Amy went to? She can't help thinking maybe that finger  _does_  know better.

Finally, Glenn (as is his style) takes matters into his own hands and reaches around her, pressing one calloused thumb against the bell. Reagan glares at him, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing but she can't find the words.

Glenn glares right back, unmoved by his sister's obvious pissed-offedness. He's faced Taliban and insurgents and Shelby sneaking out of Reagan's room at three in the morning.

He doesn't scare easy.

"I'm hungry," he says as if it's all just that simple. "And all the food is on the other side of the door." He points at the button with one finger. "Ring bell. Get food. Simple math, Ray-gun."

"Don't call me  _that_ ," Reagan hisses at him between pursed lips, ignoring the soft chuckle from her father behind her. "Not  _today_."

"OK," Glenn says but Reagan's known him her entire life and she doesn't buy it, not even a little.

"Glenn…"

He holds his hands up in mock surrender. "I promise," he says. "No Ray-gun.  _But…_  I reserve the right to use Rea Rea. Or Sugar Rea. Or Rea of Sunshine. Or Rea Charles. Or -"

Glenn stumbles back a step as she slugs him in the arm. Martin chuckle again - quieting quickly when Reagan turns her glare on him - and he fidgets in place, fingers tugging at the collar of his shirt.

"Don't," Reagan says, smacking his hand as it starts towards the tie. "I just got you presentable, don't fuck it up now."

"You kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?" Glenn asks and, really, Reagan should've known he was baiting her.

"In all  _kinds_ of places," she says, turning back just in time to see Farrah. And Bruce. And two adorable towheaded twin boys (Jordan and Jonathan) in their arms, standing in the doorway.

"What kind of places?" one of them (Jordan) asks. "Like in her room? Or at a restaurant?"

Reagan hangs her head and Martin laughs as Bruce and Farrah step aside to let them in.

"Yeah, Rea of Light," Glenn whispers as he slips by. "What  _kind_  of places?"

She can hear his laughter all the way inside.

* * *

Amy sees Reagan come through the door.

And watches as Farrah and Lauren hustle her away toward the kitchen and Bruce leads Glenn and Martin toward the big screen and the beer and just like that, she's alone.  _Again_.

She isn't looking to end up in the living room, in the corner, in front of those easels (which, really, she has to admit are a pretty thoughtful gift). That's what they are, to everyone else. A git. A present. A trip down memory lane, reminiscences of all the years and all the joys and all the laughter.

So why there are pictures of her father (seven of them by her last count), Amy will never fucking know.

It's not that she thinks there were  _no_  happy times with Jack. She  _knows_  there were. And she knows that just because he left that doesn't mean… well…  _fuck_ , she doesn't know what the  _hell_  that does or doesn't mean. She supposes it doesn't mean everyone else just scrubs him from their lives, erases all traces of him and forgets he ever existed.

If she can't do that, why would she expect them to?

He looks younger in the pictures, younger than Amy remembers him being but, she figures, when you're four or five or six,  _all_  the grown ups (which Jack technically was) look like they're about a hundred. At least.

Her hands twitch at her side as she stares, not all that surprised that there's actually more pictures of  _him_ than there are of  _her_  or that every single one she's in, Karma is there beside her. That was the way of it, for so very long, and this last weekend may have changed the present (and for the  _foreseeable_  future) but it can't rewrite the past.

And she wouldn't want it to.

Not all of it anyway.

Nana glides up next to her (and how someone that old  _glides_  when Amy has trouble with  _walking_  is beyond her). "Everything OK?" Nana asks.

Amy nods. Then shakes her head. The shrugs. And just like the last time she gave it

( _you two were a couple?)_

it's pretty much an honest answer.

Nana, like Lauren before her, thinks she knows what's wrong. It's obvious, right? It's the big gay elephant in the room and,  _of course_ , it's what's eating at Amy.

"You know I won't let any of them…" Nana trails off, completely unsure what, exactly, it is she won't let any of them do. Judge? Hate? Be prejudiced assholes?

Nana's good and maybe ( _probably_ ) she can keep any of them from  _saying_  it. But feeling it?

Even Nana's not  _that_  good.

"I know," Amy says. "But it's not…  _that_." She stares at a picture of her father, pushing her and Karma on swings they used to have in the backyard. "I'm not worried about coming out."

Nana follows her granddaughter's gaze, tracking her path through the pictures. She knows, even before she sees Amy's small round face in the photos, that she won't be smiling, not in any of them, not even the ones with Karma.

Amy knows it too and she's really not surprised that there isn't a single shot where she looks anything but miserable. She honestly can't remember the last time she actually  _enjoyed_  her family, the extended version at least.

Though, much to her own surprise, she's grown pretty fond of the nuclear version.

"I don't like family gatherings," she says.

"You don't say," Nana replies and even if Amy wasn't a black belt in the art of sarcasm, she'd still hear it dripping off Nana's every word. "None of us ever would have guessed."

Amy laughs under her breath. She knows there have been plenty of times (is there something more than  _plenty_  but less than  _all_?) when she's made everyone feel uncomfortable, at best, and outright attacked at worst.

"After my… after  _Jack_ … left," she says, "I was always the odd one out. If mom wasn't seeing someone then I was the kid with one parent and that gaping hole where  _he_  was supposed to be might as well have been a giant neon arrow pointing right at me."

Nana takes a small step closer, resting one hand on Amy's arm, relieved when she doesn't pull away. They've made progress - so  _much_  progress - these last few days but it still feels like a fragile thing, a house of cards just waiting for the lightest of breezes.

"None of you did it on purpose," Amy says. "No one ever  _tried_  or went out of their way to make me feel…  _less_. That was all me. I did it to myself." Her eyes lock on one photo. All the cousins (and Karma) surrounding Nana. And there  _she_ was, on the end, turned out when everyone else was turned in, not a smile to be seen. "But it didn't matter  _who_  did it," she says. "It still sucked."

Nana waits. She knows Amy's not done and she knows it's slow and rough going, hacking through enough emotional underbrush to choke a river dry. She lets her own eyes roam over the pictures. There's so many good memories for  _her_ , but seeing Amy in them, so disconnected, so lost… it's like every memory is spiked with just a drop of pain.

"And then," Amy says, "there were the times mom had a new boyfriend. Or one of the  _steps._ "

The word tastes bitter on her tongue, like the memories of so many men that came and went, not a one of them ever thinking of the  _other_  heart they broke when they left. Amy hated them, all of them.

Mostly because she wanted so fucking badly to love them.

"I watched," she says. "I watched you and everyone else make a big deal out of welcoming them to the family, to being a part of…" Amy waves a hand at the photos. "Part of all  _this_."

Part of  _something_. Something that was supposed to be  _hers_  but Jack and Farrah and her own anger had taken that from her.

"Every time I knew it wouldn't last and every time it didn't," she says. "But it never stopped any of you. You were all right there the next time with open hearts and open arm and ready to take them in like they were never going to leave."

They all leave. They all  _left_.

Even Karma now.

Nana glances over at Farrah, mingling around the table with Lauren and Reagan. She knows her daughter is watching them, worrying and waiting.

That's progress too. Sad, but true.

"I hated you," Amy says softly and Nana's eyes snap back around. "All of you. Not because you did  _that_ ," she says. "Because you  _could_. Because it didn't mean as much to you, it wouldn't hurt as much when they left, it wouldn't…" She trails off and covers Nana's hand with her own, trying to make sure the older woman understands. "In the end, every time, you all had each other."

"And you didn't have anyone," Nana says, not a question.

Amy shakes her head. "I had  _Karma_." She tips her head back and lets out a long breath. "The only thing that got me through was her. She was here every time and she never left."

"I know it hurts that she won't be here today, Amy," Nana says. "But now you have Reagan -"

Amy cuts her off. "It's not about Reagan," she says. "Or Karma. It's about  _me_." She stares at her own face in the photos and she knows it's her but it seems so…  _not_. "Since the day he left, I haven't once… I didn't start faking it with Karma," she says. "I've been doing  _that_ for seven fucking years."

"The family's not just meeting Reagan, are they?" Nana asks, finally getting it.

"No," Amy says, shaking her head. "They're meeting  _me_." Her eyes lock on the photo in the corner, the last one she can remember of her father, his face older and more damaged and so much more like hers than she ever knew. "And when it comes to family actually liking me," she says, "I don't exactly have the best track record."

Wherever he is, Nana hopes Jack Raudenfeld chokes on some dry fucking turkey today.

"Amy," she says, slowly turning her granddaughter toward her. "Look around." Amy does, her eyes making a slow circuit of the room, though they always drift back to Reagan and Lauren and Bruce and her mother. "You see all these people?" Nana asks. "Most of them are my blood. Some I gave birth to and then they gave birth to others and then… well… you get the idea."

Amy nods. She understands the family tree, even if she's pretty sure she's fallen off of it.

"There's probably what?" Nana asks. "Thirty, forty people here?" Amy nods again. "And I love them all," Nana says. "But I  _like_...eh…  _half_?"

Amy's eyes snap back around to her grandmother. "What?"

"It's true," Nana says. "Your cousins? The little bimbos from Houston? I love 'em, I  _have_  to. But if you told me I had to spend an hour  _alone_  with them, I'd cut my own ears off and happily bleed to death."

Amy bites her lip to keep from laughing.

"I've known your girlfriend for three  _days_ and I've already spent more time with her than I have with either Jordan or Jonathan in the last  _year_ ," Nana says. "And they're my grandkids."

They're also annoying as fuck and far more immature than any seven year old should be, Amy thinks. But she doesn't say it.

"The point is, Amy, that there's something you need to learn about this whole family business," Nana says. "See, a lot of these people? They're related to you through no fault of your own, just because of the blood running through your veins."

She takes Amy's hand and walks her away from the pictures, guiding her over to Lauren and Reagan.

"This one," she says, nodding at Lauren. "Well, you didn't have much choice about her either. But I don't think you mind." Amy smiles and Lauren looks confused. "And  _this_  one…" Nana takes Amy's hand and puts it in Reagan's. "This one you chose all on your own. And did a pretty good job of it."

Reagan laces her fingers through Amy's and arches a brow. Amy shakes her head.  _I'll explain later_.

"Maybe some of  _them_ ," Nana says, nodding at everyone else. "Maybe they won't like you. That's their choice. And  _this_ ," she clasps Reagan and Amy's joined hands. "Is  _yours_. Blood is by birth, Amy.  _Family_  is by choice."

Nana takes Lauren's hand and leads her off, leaving Amy and Reagan alone for the first time all afternoon.

"Hey," Reagan says, pulling her girlfriend close. "Happy Thanksgiving, Shrimps."

Amy kisses her softly, not caring who sees. "Happy Thanksgiving Rea," she says. And she's not surprised, even a little, that she actually means it.

* * *

It's a nice night for a walk or so Karma keeps telling herself. Really, it's cold as fuck and darker than it should be for this time of year. The clouds are hiding the moon and the stars and half the street lights in town (at least the stretch from her house to Amy's) are out.

But she doesn't care. It's still better than home.

It didn't used to be that way. Karma used to love the holidays at her house even if her parents always somehow managed to make them into some new age thing that didn't quite fit with tradition. Like the year her mother hung the star atop the tree.  _Except_  it was a model of a  _real_  star, complete with actual moving gases and the occasional hissing sparks, like the one that nearly burned the tree (and the house) to the ground.

"Authenticity is important," Molly said and Karma bit her tongue and didn't point out that so was  _not_ burning down their home.

There was a time, Karma remembers, when Thanksgiving would have meant something to her, something real. She and Amy would have spent it together - half at her house and half at Farrah's - and they'd have eaten too much and laughed even more and, in the end, they'd have wound up the evening on the Raudenfeld front porch, the wishbone in hand.

Amy would remind her, as she  _always_  did, that you really were supposed to wait a couple of days before you cracked it. Otherwise it wouldn't be dry enough and it wouldn't break right and so they should probably hold off.

And Karma would simply grab her and and wait until Amy gave in, as she  _always_  did, and they'd pull.

Karma won nearly every year - though she had  _long_  since figured out Amy  _let_  her - and every year they'd have the same argument.

"Why do you let me win?" Karma would ask and Amy would just smile and shrug.

"Because," she'd say, "my wish would just be that your wish came true anyway. This way, we cut out the middle man."

But that was  _then_  and this was  _now_  and now Karma finds herself (not surprisingly) standing across the street from Amy's house. She's not there to cause trouble or stalk or… whatever.

She just needs to… hell… she doesn't exactly  _know_  what she needs but she's got a pretty good idea it has something to do with seeing Amy and knowing she's OK because even though Lauren says she is…

it's not the same.

Amy's outside when she gets there, on the porch with Reagan, wrapped up in her girlfriend's arms, swaying slowly to the music Karma can hear from inside the house. The moon-less dark keeps her hidden from sight and she knows what everyone would say if they could see her there, what they'd all  _think_  and how it would  _look_.

But she doesn't care. And they don't matter.

For ten years, more than half her life, Karma has been  _here_ , every time. Not just the street or the house or the room.  _Here_.

_Amy._

And maybe tonight, she shouldn't be. Maybe this one time in ten years (and maybe it won't just be one time and maybe tomorrow she'll have to face that but that's  _tomorrow_ ) she should be somewhere else. Maybe she shouldn't be worried and maybe she shouldn't wonder what was going to happen to Amy without her there.

Maybe, Karma thinks, she should have known and maybe she  _did_. Maybe she's known from the ballpit to now, that Amy was always the stronger one.

But she wouldn't be Karma if she didn't worry. And she wouldn't be Karma if she didn't check.

And if she and Amy are ever going to be right again, she  _needs_  to be  _Karma_ and not the Karma from the party or from faking it.

The Karma Amy loved.

_Loves_.

She watches them there, together, and if it doesn't hurt as much as she thought or, at least, in the  _way_  she thought it would, well Karma's gotta think that's a good thing. And she knows now that Amy is safe and cared for and that this is  _their_  moment,  _their_ time.

So she'll leave them to it.

Karma turns to go, to head home, back to her own family and, hopefully, toward whatever it is she has to do to make this right. And she's so lost in her thoughts and it's so fucking  _dark_  that she almost doesn't see him. She probably would have missed him there, in the dark, lurking like a… well… something that  _lurks_  (and if she can't think of anything right then and there she can be forgiven since her heart's in her throat).

She doesn't know whether to scream, cry, or run for Amy but she  _knows_  that she  _wishes_  she had walked right past him, that she hadn't seen him, that she'd just stayed blind and ignorant cause that really would have been bliss.

But she didn't miss him and he didn't miss her as he steps out of the shadows, out of the dark, out of the…  _fuck it_ … he just steps  _out_ , out of wherever the fuck he's been and right in front of her where she's got no choice but to see him.

"Hello, Karma."

She could say nothing. She could scream. She could yell for Amy and she and Reagan would come running and maybe that would be best. For her, at least.

But Karma's not quite sure that would be best for Amy, in fact she's pretty fucking sure it would be the exact  _opposite_  of best, so she doesn't scream and she doesn't yell.

"Hello, Mr. Ra…" She stops. That's respectful and Karma may not  _know_  much but she  _knows_  he doesn't  _deserve_ that. Not even a little.

"Hello, Jack," she says. "What the  _fuck_ are you doing here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, this wasn't the chapter I originally intended or wrote. That chapter (still sitting on my computer) was the LAST chapter. A ten year flash forward to see where they all end up. And while I was writing it, I kept getting favorites and follows and pms and msgs asking me to update. Stories I've been writing regularly don't get that much love. And I looked back and realized I've been writing this for over a year. And I'm not gonna lie… this has been (without a doubt) the hardest, most painful, messiest and roughest year of my life. That's why I started this - Just For Me - to have a way to deal with it all. And along the way it kinda… blew up. And I made friends and then I left. I disappeared from tumblr and I am sorry for that (it couldn't be helped and it still can't) and I know I hurt some folks (sorry for that too, more than you know). But this story… it just kept going. People keep finding it and I get msgs about it, even if I can't respond. And I know it's just a story about a TV show (a sometimes aggravatingly dense TV show) but it's helped me. You've helped me. Every one of you who has read it and sticks with it even though it takes me forever to update. I can't promise that will get better. But I can promise that if and when I decide to go for good I'll post that last chapter, so this won't be left dangling in the wind. But for now…thank everyone of you who has read this (whether you liked it or not) or taken the time to review or send me a msg (even just to yell at me because… Karma). And thank you to every person who took the time to be my friend when I needed some really really badly. I hope, even a little, this story brightened a day or two for you. Because it has for me. And it's woefully inadequate but it's all I can say. Thank you.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut. And there's something else important too. But mostly smut.

__

Reagan presses the phone between her shoulder and her ear. The motion stretches the muscles in her neck and the cock of her head, the way she tilts into the phone, exposes a stretch of smooth skin and Amy can't help staring.

Well, she _could_ help it, but she doesn't have to and that's one of the perks (and there are, she's discovering, _so many_ ) of having a girlfriend and being in love. Being allowed to stare as much as you want.

And she wants. She wants _a lot_.

Amy watches Reagan as she talks, letting her eyes wander down the older girl's naked back, pausing for just a moment, just long enough to soak in those spots, those two little dimples just above Reagan's waist.

She'd heard about those before. Read about them on tumblr and saw mention of them in one of Karma's dossiers and, really, had no idea what the big deal was.

And then she felt them under her fingers, tasted them (and so much _more_ ) on her tongue and now Amy chalks those up on the same list of things she never understood before. But she does now.

She _so_ does.

That's been happening a lot lately, she knows. The staring and the big dealing and the discovering and it's starting to make Amy feel even more like the teenage boy Reagan jokingly said she was. But she gets that too, now. She understands how _they_ must feel, that first time, the way they must get lost and overwhelmed by the hormones and the drives and those exciting first forays into…

_Everything_.

And it really has been _everything_ or, at least, Amy _thinks_ it has, though she's never quite sure because every time she thinks they've tried everything (sometimes more than once), Reagan finds something new (and it's not like she's _so_ much more experience than Amy, so Amy's sure she's making some of this up as she goes and that is so _not_ a complaint.)

But this… _this_ might be (and it really is a _might_ cause it's got _a lot_ of competition), Amy's favorite part, this admiring, this watching. And she knows that makes her sound like some sort of voyeuristic perv but it's true and it's not just because Reagan looks so good naked (not _just_ ), it's because she _is_ naked. She's naked and she's there and Amy _can_ look and not just can, but she's _expected_ to and Reagan _wants_ her to and Amy thinks that might just be the hottest thing ever.

Though, there was that one trick Reagan did with the scarves and that little tickler thing…

Amy sits up in the small bed in the corner of the cabin and watches as Reagan moves to the table. She could watch Reagan just walk back and forth and forth and back over and over and she's pretty sure she'd never get tired of it. Why would she? The front view is… well… _awesome_ (and yes, she knows that word is overused but… _naked Reagan_ ) and then there's the back view and if the front one is awesome? The view from behind?

_Fuck_.

Just… _fuck._

She's been staring a lot lately and not just since they've been here, not just since they bailed on Black Friday shopping with Lauren and Farrah (and even the thought of _that_ makes Amy shudder and not in the _good_ way she's been doing a lot of since they got here). They snuck out bright and early (maybe not so bright but Amy wouldn't really know since she slept half the drive) and made it here in what Reagan says is record time. And since then the staring has been something of a regular thing for Amy, both clothed and unclothed and she's discovered that yes, there are steps between clothed and unclothed (and some of them are _a lot_ of fun) and she just can't stop.

The staring. The wanting. The, if she's gonna be sweet and romantic, _loving_.

But mostly the staring and the wanting but that's OK because she's already loved Reagan forever, or so it seems, and she's wanted her at least as long and - when it comes to _that_ \- they've got some serious time to make up for.

Part of Amy - a small one but it's still there - wishes, at least a little, that they _hadn't_ waited so long. That it hadn't taken the party and Karma and Liam and the pain and…

And no. Just… _no_.

She shakes her head and remembers the promise she made to herself as Reagan backed Lightning out of her mother's driveway. Amy swore that she was going to put it all behind her, that she was going to stop thinking about the secrets and the party and the worries over Thanksgiving and the fears that she and Karma are really done forever.

It's not like a promise will make it all disappear, Amy _knows_ that, she knows it's all still there.

Her family will always be her family and her father issues (father, not _daddy_ , cause that's a whole _other_ thing) will always be her father issues - it's not like he's around for her to work them out somehow - and Karma…

Karma is Karma and Karma will always _be_ Karma and _they_ will always be Karma and Amy and she _knows_ that as clearly and as solidly as she knows that she loves Reagan or that Lauren is her sister in every way that matters and that she should have punched Liam Booker out long before the party.

It's all still there and Amy knows it but that doesn't mean she has to waste time thinking about it or fixating on it or letting it twist her insides into knots.

_Not_ when there are so many _better_ things to do.

Reagan's standing by the tiny kitchen table where she left her iPad. They've gone almost forty eight hours without technology, without so much as a cell phone call or a text message, save for the ones they sent to let their families know they'd made it to the cabin in one piece. Since then, it's been them and only them and, honestly?

It's been the best two days (and nights) of Amy's life.

Across the cabin - and that makes it sound _so_ far away when it's really like three or four steps, but Amy's body aches (in such a _good_ way), so that three or four steps may as well be three or four _miles_ \- Reagan leans against the table. The fingers on her one hand drum along the wood as the fingers on her other hand tap the iPad to life.

And Amy knows all too well how much life those fingers can give.

Reagan peeks back over her shoulder and catches Amy looking (at her ass) and clears her throat, laughing as her girlfriend's eyes snap up, but then she gives her hips a little swivel to let Amy know that looking is very much OK and Amy groans deep in her throat and Reagan smiles that little 'victory!' smile she gets every time she makes Amy moan or or writhe or cum.

She's been smiling _that_ smile a lot. Like double digits a lot and Amy thinks of that and she blushes (for about the thousandth time this weekend) but it isn't as bright or as red as it was even a couple days ago and this time a lot of the blush settles in her chest, next to her racing heart and her rapid breaths.

And when she notices Reagan noticing _that_ and the way it brings color to _her_ cheeks and makes her bite down on her bottom lip…

That groan becomes a moan and Amy hopes whoever is on the other end of the line is quick about it or else they might be getting an earful.

It may have taken Amy a day and a half to get used to not covering herself completely with the bed sheet whenever she got up but she's getting better at it - like so many other things - and she knows she'll get even better. She just needs practice which is good, because they _love_ to practice and right now - watching Reagan swivel her hips, _again,_ grinding them against the air?

Amy wants to practice.

A lot.

"That's right, I do private parties," Reagan says into the phone, her voice husky (and when _isn't_ it?) and Amy can already hear it, the frustration and the impatience and the _really, couldn't this wait till Monday cause my girlfriend is naked in bed_

( _and_ on the floor _and_ on that same table _and_ that one time against the counter with her legs thrown over Reagan's shoulders and staring down into her eyes as she…)

_Fuck._ Just… _fuck. Again._

"My usual rate is…" Reagan trails off and Amy watches as her eyes grow wide as she listens to whoever is on the other end of the line. She glances back over at Amy and mouths 'triple' with an excited smile, one that only grows when Amy sits up excitedly and the sheet falls down, pooling around her waist and the blonde doesn't even notice (no matter how cool the air in the cabin is.)

Triple. Triple her rate means triple the amount to go into the 'MAD' ( _M_ ake _A_ _D_ emo) account. Or three times fewer cater waiter gigs she'll have to take for a while or three times closer to being able to buy some new gear cause her deck's getting up there. Triple is triple the chances of something really good and that's about three _hundred_ times the chances Amy would have expected just a week ago.

Reagan turns back to the table and starts tapping on the iPad, making notes about the client and the party and their special requests. Amy loves watching her like this (and she doesn't mean naked) (She doesn't mean _just_ that), when she goes all professional and just handles her shit. It's a reminder - like Amy needs _another_ one - that Reagan's older and more experienced and, at least sometimes, fairly responsible.

You know, basically everything no one else in her life really is. Or, at least, everything no one else ever _was_.

There was a time, at the beginning (and that makes it sound like it's been forever instead of just a few months, but it _feels_ so much longer, like they've been doing this for at least a _year_ or a year and a couple months), when Amy wondered if _that_ had something to do with her attraction to Reagan, if maybe she was into her because Reagan represented something Amy didn't have with anyone else.

She'd even considered - after one exceptionally disturbing discussion of _Oedipus_ in English class - if maybe she had something of a… complex… if she was looking for a replacement of some sort for what she'd lost.

Father issues. _Father_.

That same night, Reagan took her to the movies and got into an argument with a woman over who had actually ordered the last box of M&M's (' _no, I_ cannot _just take the_ peanut _ones,_ bitch') and then spent the rest of the night planning increasingly elaborate revenge fantasies against the woman, plans so intricate and ruthless that Karma would have bowed down before her.

Amy didn't wonder about the whole 'grown up' thing again and she certainly never looked at Reagan as a replacement for _anyone_ (no matter what that _anyone_ thought.)

Still, there was something about watching Reagan in her element, whether that was spinning or serving or arranging a gig, that made Amy feel some kinda way. It _was_ responsible and it _was_ grown up and it _was_ a major fucking turn on that her girlfriend - the same one that yelled 'Woot! In the woods sex!' when they got to the cabin - could actually deal with shit, like _real life_ shit.

So, yeah, Amy loves watching Reagan work but, normally, Reagan does that with clothes _on_ , so now, with clothes _off_ and swiveling hips and shaking ass and those fucking dimples…

Amy _really_ loves watching. To the point where she can't _just_ watch and maybe she's new at all this (so _not_ maybe) but she's got some _ideas_ and all of them involve Reagan and that table and Amy's _very_ hungry and, for maybe the first time _ever_ she doesn't mean for doughnuts.

"Sweet sixteen, got it," Reagan says, her fingers tapping away and she's into it now, into business mode and so she doesn't notice Amy slip out of the bed, or her leaving the sheet behind. "And your daughter's name is…? Lucy, yup, got that too."

Amy takes those three or four steps across the room and slips one arm around Reagan's waist, smiling as the older girl automatically leans back into her, pressing Amy's breasts against her naked skin and Reagan lets out a long, slow, deep breath.

There's something about knowing that she affects Reagan the same way Reagan affects her that does wonders for Amy's confidence.

Reagan tries to focus on the call. "Any particular kinds of music Lucy…" She trails off as she feels Amy's lips - and then her tongue - sliding along the skin of her neck and the tiniest nip of teeth right along her collarbone. "Music," she stammers again. "Anything specific that she likes?"

Amy lets one hand slide down along Reagan's side, fingertips just barely grazing the skin as she runs them down over her girlfriend's hip and then back up again. She reaches down to the iPad keyboard with her other hand.

I _like_ you, she types.

Reagan tips her head back and gives Amy a look that the blonde knows is _supposed_ to say stop, but Amy chooses that moment to grip Reagan's hip tightly and pull her back, pressing her girlfriend's ass against her, giving her own hips a quick swivel and then that look says anything _but_ stop, it turns into something that Amy imagines is what a moan might look like.

She smirks at Reagan (and Reagan _knows_ she's _fucked_ and she so doesn't _care_ ) and grinds against her again, and Reagan grinds back, letting their hips work together as _she_ reaches for the iPad, typing furiously.

_Shrimps… Amy…_

Amy chuckles lightly, leaning forward and letting the vibrations roll against Reagan's neck and she taps out her own reply - _Want me to stop? -_ while her other hand slips from Reagan's hip and slides between her legs, two fingers dancing lightly just above Reagan's clit.

" _No_ ," she says and then "No, I mean, that shouldn't be a… problem. I've...um… got all sorts of old school dance tracks I can use."

Amy smirks again, letting her hand trail lower, flicking one finger over Reagan's clit before pulling back as her girlfriend's knees buckle and Amy presses her tight between her and the table. And then Reagan's hand is suddenly over hers and Amy thinks maybe she's gone a little too far.

Reagan pushes her hand further, closer, and Amy can feel how absolutely _soaked_ the older girl is and she thinks - as Reagan taps out one last message - maybe she hasn't gone far _enough_.

_If you're gonna fuck me, then FUCK me_

Reagan punctuates the message with a hard grind and a buck of her hips against Amy's hand and any concerns Amy might have had about disrupting her girlfriend's professionalism for right the fuck out the cabin window.

She slowly kisses her way down Reagan's back, letting her tongue leaving a trail against her skin as she goes, using one hand to gently press Reagan forward, bending her over the table and Reagan complies without struggle.

Amy uses her own legs to slowly guide Reagan's apart, letting her thigh brush right _there_ drawing a hiss from the other girl. " _Yes_ ," Reagan says and Amy smiles, "Monday would be… _fine_."

The blonde drops to her knees behind her and Reagan _knows_ what's coming but she can't _see_ it, so it's all anticipation as she feels Amy's hands gripping her ass and she barely hears what this Mr. Lee is saying on the other end of the line.

"Monday," she says, feeling Amy's breath - hot and heavy - blowing across her skin as one finger slowly (so _fucking_ slowly) slips through her slick folds and _fuck_ she's going to _die_ but oh _God_ , what a way to go. "Coffee shop on Woodbridge," she says. "Got it."

She don't 'got it', she _so_ don't got it and she really fucking hopes Amy heard that and remembers it because she's not even sure she's fucking conscious and then Amy slips that one finger _just_ inside of her and oh sweet _Jesus_ if Amy's this good _now_ , she's going to fucking kill her one day when she _knows_ what she's doing.

Amy watches, with rapt attention, as Reagan responds to her touch. She moans at the way her girlfriend bucks her hips when she pulls her finger back, the way Reagan shudders when she runs that one finger along the length of her, slowly sliding it along, back and forth before bringing it to her lips and gently sucking it clean.

And _that_ is about all Amy can take with the teasing and the build up and she _needs_ Reagan _now._

She hears her girlfriend confirm once more that she'll be there and a 'thank _you_ , Mr. Lee' and a 'looking forward to it' and then silence and Amy knows the call is over and _that's_ all she needs to lean forward, intending to give Reagan one long, slow, lick but the second she gets a taste, Amy can't help herself. She buries her head between Reagan's legs, hands on her ass and feasts, moaning loudly when she feels the older girl's hand on the back of her head, pulling her forward.

"Fuck," Reagan moans as Amy spears her tongue inside, swirling it the way she knows Reagan likes, knowing from the way her girlfriend's hand tangles in her hair that she's hitting the right spots. "Amy… fuck… baby…" She doesn't let up, not even for a second cause there will be plenty of time for sweet and slow and teasing.

_Later_.

Right now Amy's reveling in it all, in the way Reagan's responding and the way _she's_ taking control and that absolute and total lack of embarrassment or hesitation as she fucks the older girl, her tongue swirling and stabbing, slipping out to flatten against Reagan's clit and then diving back in. It isn't the first time Amy's done this, but it might be the first time she's going to get herself off just from doing it and she moans into Reagan as she feels her own orgasm building, letting one hand slip down between her own legs.

And then Reagan screams - _screams_ \- and Amy feels it, feels the woman she _loves_ cum all around her tongue and that's all it takes to set her off too but she doesn't stop, she just keeps going until Reagan's knees give out and she slips down off the table, landing on top of Amy as they collapse onto the floor.

"So…" Amy says, several _long_ minutes later. She rolls over, pinning Reagan beneath her as she smirks down at her. She straddles the older girl, slowly crawling up until Reagan's got a thigh by each ear and her hands firmly planted on Amy's hips. "My turn?"


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma goes to talk to Jack and Liam talks to the new girl in school and how could those two things possibly be related?

The coffee shop might as well be located at the corner of 'What The _Fuck_ Am I Doing' Drive and 'This Can't End Well' Lane because, really, that's _all_ Karma can think.

Meeting Amy's father - her _father_ \- for coffee and talk and explanations she knows won't matter and will mostly be lies is possibly the most insane thing she's done and she's had sex in a Thunderbox, pretended to be a lesbian, and actually _loved_ Liam Booker. Keeping all of this from Amy - the _Jack_ this cause Amy knows the rest - is about the only part of this that makes any sense to her and that's mostly because Amy's already not speaking to her, so keeping a secret shouldn't be _that_ hard.

Even _this_ secret.

Karma stands outside the shop in the same place - the same exact fucking _spot_ \- she's been in for at least the last ten minutes, since her mother dropped her off, rolling the Good Karma truck right up to the curb while frowning deeply with all kinds of motherly concern. Molly asked - at least a half dozen times - if Karma was sure this was the right place.

"It's so… out of the way," she said. "Why would Lauren want to meet _here_ to work on your project? What about the library or the house, even? We made her feel welcome, didn't we?"

Karma had reassured her mother that yes, she and Lucas had been fine and no, it wasn't about them or their home or any of the oddly flavored smoothies they'd tried to reward Lauren with after she'd kicked Liam in the balls, and yes, the coffee shop was a… little… out of the way but Lauren said they had the best lattes in all of Austin and muffins to die for and no, it had nothing to do with Lauren not wanting to be seen with her in public.

"It's fine," Karma said ( _lied_ ) (but she was used to _that_ ) (and that wasn't depressing or frightening or make her wonder who the hell she'd become, nope, not at all). "If Lauren can't give me a ride, I'll call you when I'm ready to get picked up, OK?"

Molly frowned - again - and Karma thought, just for a moment, that her mother had seen through her lies, that she'd somehow pieced it all together (because Amy's dad being back was _so_ the most piecable explanation for all of this) but then Molly shifted the truck into park and took her daughter's hands in her own and Karma was _sure_ the jig was fucking up.

"I know the last week or so has been… hard… on you," Molly said. "And I know you didn't handle everything as well as you could have…"

Supportive talks were not Molly's strong point and Karma desperately wanted out of the truck before Jack came strolling up and everything went to hell. "Mom, I've gotta g-"

The rest of it was smothered by her mother's shoulder as Molly pulled Karma across the seats and hugged her as if she was sending her off to war.

"I love you, Karma. And so does your father." Molly held her tighter (if that was possible) and kissed her daughter's cheek. "And it may not seem like it right now, but _she_ loves you too and someday soon this will all just be another story you two share. Just another fabric square in the eternal quilt of your friendship."

Karma wasn't sure which urge was stronger - the one to hug the very life out of her mother or the one to roll her eyes so hard they spun free from their sockets. "I know mom," she said softly into the crook of Molly's neck. "I know it'll be alright."

And then she'd hopped from the truck and found that spot on the sidewalk that she's been standing in ever since and stared at the door to the coffee shop with those last few words ringing in her ears.

_I know it'll be alright_

What was one more lie in the grand scheme of things?

* * *

Liam's distracted and the girl he's with knows it and, normally, she'd take that kinda personally.

It's not that she thinks that highly of herself (though she has been told she's pretty awesome but that was from Perry, her best friend, and her judgment was never to be trusted because...well.. _best friend_ ) or that she thinks she's got what it takes to keep a guy like Liam interested.

She's sure, if she tried, she could keep his attention. But that would mean trying and working and flirting and she's not into that, especially not with guys like Liam (good looking, obviously popular, rich or so her father says but not nearly as _all that_ as she gets the feeling he thinks he is) and, really, not with _guys_ in general (that's not an _always_ , more of a _usually_ ), but that's not what she thinks of as a first meeting talking point though her father did mention Liam's best friend was gay and she's pretty sure he pointed that out _specifically_ because even if she hasn't come out to him, officially, well...

A father knows things.

But into Liam or not (definitely _not_ ) she still thinks she's not quite boring enough to _not_ warrant his undivided attention, not that she's one of _those_ girls, the kind that demands whoever they're with to focus on them and nothing else and even if she isn't one of _them_ she'd still like to think she's at least as interesting as the space Liam's staring into or that purple truck that passed them five minutes ago and stopped him cold in the middle of a sentence.

That was OK, though. It was a boring sentence.

They're still walking and he is, slowly, starting to talk again, filling her in on Austin (even if, he says, he doesn't get to this part of town too often and she tries not to take that as slight since she's going to be spending a lot of time in this part of town now that her father bought the shop but Liam doesn't know _that_ ) and talking a lot - _a lot_ \- about Hester and how much she's going to love it there and how good and nice and accepting the people are.

She's heard that before. She's heard all of this before, really, in a way. This isn't her first time dealing with all of this - the getting to know you and you and you and the place and the school and the 'this part of town' - and she knows that's the price she pays for moving somewhere new, _again_.

It's not the meeting all new people and making all new friends. She's good at that, like, surprisingly good given how much time she likes to spend by herself, but people, once they actually do meet her, just seem to fall right in love with her (but not _in love_ in love cause that hasn't happened yet and what little chance Liam had of being the first went out the window the moment he opened his mouth). She's friendly and personable and bright - but not so bright that it's intimidating or makes her stand out - and she's not _that_ nice, not gratingly so, not like she's trying too hard to make people like her.

The approval of others doesn't much matter to her.

Usually.

And yes, she rambles, a lot, even in her own head. Especially when she's nervous or angry or just doesn't know what to say.

"It runs in the family," her father always says. Which is kinda odd cause she's never heard him do it even once.

She can handle the making friends and meeting people and finding her way in a new town and a new school. She _has_ handled it, more than once. Six new towns, six new schools since she was eight and Austin and Hester make it seven and she hopes, more this time than any other, that this will be the _last_. She's going to be sixteen in a week and she'd like to finish school (and prom and graduation and all the normal things) in one place.

And she's got a feeling about this one. A good one.

"I think we'll be here a while," she told her father the night before, sitting on the front steps of their new house and watching their neighbors come and go. "I think this might be the one."

"I hope so Lucy," he said to her. "I really do."

* * *

Karma knows no one would believe her but there _are_ things she misses from before.

Before they faked it. Before Amy realized the truth about herself. Before Liam and Reagan, before the party, before she wrecked it all (and yes, she knows she had _help_ but she's trying to be honest, at least with herself, and they might all have pushed the wrecking ball but she was the one riding it).

Before all that, no one noticed her - well, _almost_ no one and that 'almost' is the only reason she's here - and Karma remembers thinking that was a fate worse than death.

"Seriously, Karms," Amy always said. "It's not that bad. So what if _everyone_ doesn't know your name?"

Every time. Amy said it _every time_ and every time Karma explained that it wasn't that _everyone_ didn't know her name it was that _no one_ did and yes, she sees now how _wrong_ and probably _hurtful_ that was and what's that old ditty about not knowing what you had till it's gone?

Gone off camping in the woods with a hot piece of ass who also happens to be super loyal and cool and the person most likely to kill Karma on sight.

Yeah...that's how Karma _knows_. She knows that she used to think there was nothing worse than going through life unnoticed and unknown and unloved and unremembered. She couldn't think of _anything_ worse than that.

_I slept with Liam_

_I choose Reagan_

_Before_ , Karma hadn't understood but now… well…well, _now_ was a different fucking matter entirely.

Before, no one saw her (almost no one and yes, she gets that _now_ and she thinks that she really doesn't need to be reminded of it constantly but her head - and her heart - seem to disagree) and now they can't _stop_ seeing her. Now they all stare and whisper and she's anything but unnoticed.

She only wishes she was.

There's a part of her that wishes they could just go back, that somehow they could time travel back to that day on the roof and she could do it all differently. She'd do more than just give lip service to the idea that Amy was the most important thing in her life and when Amy says those words, when she makes the call to 'be lesbians!', Karma would find the strength and the courage and the guts to just say no.

Except that would mean no Reagan and maybe no Amy-and-Lauren and Amy might still be in the closet (if she even realized she was) and yeah, it would all be so much better.

For Karma.

So, if she doesn't wish to go back _too hard_ , well…

It's the least she can do.

* * *

Liam's spacing out again and Lucy's getting a little tired of it.

She can live with the changes, with the new neighborhood and the new school and the new friends but it takes a little time and, usually, someone nice enough to give her an hour or two or even just a friendly face she can know in the crowd of unfamiliar eyes staring back at her.

Her father thought Liam was going to be that face.

Clearly, her father is an idiot.

But maybe that's harsh because, really, how could her father have known that the guy he asked to be her tour guide slash friendly face slash way into the Hester social scene would end up staring off into space and mumbling about karma (a concept she's totally on board with if only in the hopes that all her moving and all her starting over and all her doing it all with a smile and hardly a complaint will, someday, pay off) and, basically, ignoring her?

Or that he might stop dead in the middle of the street while Lucy takes five or six more steps before she realizes that he's not with her anymore.

Though she's not really sure he ever was.

She stops and turns back, walking towards him and then she notices that, yeah, he actually is looking at _her_ now and… wow… he really does have _piercing_ eyes and Lucy imagines many a girl has been caught in that stare and melted right into his arms or his kiss or his bed. Most girls she knows probably would.

She's not _most_ girls. That's what Perry always told her and yeah, her judgment isn't to be trusted, but Lucy can safely say she's not feeling Liam Booker even a little. And that's got nothing to do with his looks cause, yeah, she knows he's kinda hot. But it has everything to do with him being

"An ass."

"What?" she says, stopping just short of him, surprised that he's actually talking and not mumbling random shit that she doesn't understand.

"I'm being an ass," Liam says, and there's something in his voice - resignation or familiarity or _something_ \- that makes Lucy think that might not be an uncommon thing, both him being an ass _and_ him having to admit it. "I'm supposed to be showing you around and, honesty?" He glances around. "I don't even know where I am."

"So we're in the same boat then," Lucy says with a smile and Liam grins and ducks his head all bashful like and yup, she can see where that might work on most girls too but most girls don't have an allergy to bullshit like she does (that's her only one, though her dad was convinced she'd be allergic to nuts until she was like seven). "It's OK," she says. "I'm used to it."

Liam's grin grows bigger but no more real and Lucy can't help wondering when the last time he actually _smiled_ was and if he's ever not in full flirt mode. "You're used to me being an ass?"

"Not yet," she says. "But give me time." He laughs and Lucy thinks it _might_ be real and he falls in next to her and they start walking again. "I meant that I'm used to my tour guides and pretty much everyone I meet, being a bit… distracted."

"Really?" Liam asks and she waits for it, waits for the 'I can't believe anyone could be distracted around _you_ ' bit of game that she knows he's dying to spit at her but he holds his tongue and maybe, she thinks, there's a little hope for him yet. "Happens a lot then?" he asks.

She nods. "Yeah, but it's understandable, really," she says. "When you move a lot, you tend to think about these things. I've realized that everywhere I go, I'm interrupting."

Liam stops - _again_ \- and tilts his head and it makes him look like a puppy and Lucy has to bite her lip not to laugh. "Interrupting?"

She nods again. "Yeah. It's like… well… it's _not_ like y'all have just been sitting around waiting for me to show up, like you're some kind of video game and you've been waiting for me to push the power button and make you all spring to life."

Lucy talks with her hands, animating everything she says and Liam smiles and chuckles as she pantomimes everyone suddenly bursting forth upon her arrival.

"You've all got people," she says. "People and… stuff… things that don't just stop when I show up and sometimes that makes for… awkward moments. Like when you spotted that truck and froze and I didn't know if I should ask…"

Liam's smile vanishes those piercing eyes cloud over and he shuffles his feet on the sidewalk and then mumbles a sorry (at least that's what Lucy _thinks_ he says) and then he's walking again and the coffee shop is just up around the corner and she slips her phone out and texts her dad and he says he'll meet them outside and that's good, Lucy thinks, because she didn't just make this _really_ fucking awkward.

Nope. Not awkward _at all_.

* * *

At least a dozen people pass Karma on their way in or out of the coffee shop and not a one of them notices her standing there, in place, not moving or talking or doing much other than breathing and trying to convince herself _not_ to run.

But she's doing _that_ in her head, so they can be forgiven for not picking up on it, really.

It's actually kind of nice for her, in a way. No one staring, no one whispering, no one talking about her breakdown at the party or kicking Tommy's balls in the cafeteria - not that she minds everyone talking about _that_ , the fucker had it coming - and it just reminds her that Amy was right all along.

Being noticed ain't all it's cracked up to be.

There's something to getting passed by, to getting ignored and Karma wonders if maybe _that's_ why she's still standing here and not going in. She'll be noticed inside, she knows that much, and it's _nice_ out here. The shop _is_ pretty out of the way, about as far on the other side of Hester and her house (and, more importantly, Amy's) as it can be and still be within the school district zoning. And it's cute, from the outside, the sort of place she can see herself actually going on her own. She imagines there's a bulletin board just inside the door with flyers for jobs and dog sitters and open mike night she could actually go to, where she could safely step on stage without the fear of running into anyone she knows.

Even if she also knows she'll _never_ step foot in the place again after today.

She knows she'll never come back because this is where Jack wanted to meet and this is where he asked her to come and talk to him.

"At least hear me out, Karma," he said, "before you run to Amy."

Karma's pretty sure he's been watching his daughter for a while now, but he can't be watching too closely. she thinks, if he still thinks running to Amy is anything even close to an option for her.

Even for this.

_This_. She doesn't even know what _this_ is. Is he back? Is he staying? Is he here to see what he lost when he left? Is _this_ one of those bad movies she sees on TV and he's dying and he's come back to make it all right before the end or is he some kind of sick motherfucker who's just passing through and can't resist the chance to see his ex and his kid and if they've even begun to recover from the damage he did?

Karma's inclined to think it's the last option but she's not even sure it really matters. In fact, she's pretty sure it _doesn't_ , not as long as Amy never knows and not as long as she never has to see Jack or listen to him or deal with whatever excuses and crap reasons and horrible bullshit lies he's got saved up for her.

Jack broke something in Amy when he left, something Karma's never really understood even though she sees it every day (or _saw_ it and yes, she realizes now that there were _a lot_ of things about Amy she saw but never understood). And if she can do anything, if talking to Jack today and giving him an hour of her time will keep him from taking even another second of Amy's life, will prevent him from ever getting the chance to break her again?

She'll do it. Even it means being noticed.

"Karma?"

Even if, apparently, it means being noticed by Liam Booker and his new bit of arm candy (who looks oddly… familiar… in a 'I've never seen you before' kinda way) and _that_ didn't take long, did it?

She should feel… something… at being replaced but she's oddly OK with it.

Right up until she isn't.

Which - not surprisingly - is when the door of the coffee shop opens and Jack steps out and a chorus of voices echo off the pavement.

"Mr. Lee." (Liam)

"Dad!" (Lucy)

"Karma?" (Jack)

"Dad?"

She's (Karma) that _last_ one, the word forcing it's way out of her eve as she feels like gagging on it and choking on it and this - _this_ \- has to be what it feels like for Amy when her allergy kicks in and her throat closes and the world swims and she's sure she's about to die except there's no one here with an EPI pen and Karma's pretty sure there's no shot big enough for _this_.

"Dad," she says again, eyes flicking between Jack and Lucy as a sick realization settles in over her and she knows.

_This_ is why he's back.

_She's_ why he's back.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma and Jack 'interact' and Reagan and Amy get lost. Sort of.

There are, believe it or not, choices Karma's proud of.

Choosing Amy, for one. Recent events notwithstanding (and yes, those are mostly her fault and yes, she knows that and yes, she knows planning to meet Amy's _father_ in secret _after_ those recent events is probably not going to land on her top ten list of good choices or help fix _anything_ but it's a choice between that and trying to tell Amy he's back so, really, it's no fucking choice at all) no choice she's ever made has felt so right or brought her so much joy.

The last few weeks (or months or whatever) have sucked, they've sucked out fucking loud, but she wouldn't trade all the years before them for anything in the world. Even if this really is the end - and Karma can't quite get herself to believe it is - it was all worth it.

_Amy_ was worth it.

Finally. Something she and Reagan can agree on.

Dumping Liam is right up there too at the top of the list too, even if she's not entirely sure _she_ actually did it or if he sorta dumped himself (what with the outing Lauren and the sleeping with Amy and the general being _him_ of it all), but either way it's done and she's not going back on it, so she's totally counting it, though she does regret - just a little - that it was Lauren that kicked him in his _little_ Liam and not her. And then there was Tommy and she _was_ the one to kick _him_ in his little Liam (and yup, that's totally the terms she's using for _all_ dicks from now on) and she's actually _really_ proud of that one.

He had it coming. And Amy saw it and so, at least in one way - a very ball kicking and abstract and not really saying the words because right now words won't work for them way - Amy knows.

Karma's sorry.

Someday, Karma hopes, 'sorry' will mean _something_ , though she understands all too well that someday is not today and probably not tomorrow or even the day after, but she keeps reminding herself that there's a decade behind them.

And all the time in the world in _front_ of them.

There are those choices, and a few others along the way, that she's proud of. And then there's the last week. Or maybe - if she's being honest - the last few months, at least _most_ of them, at least every moment that had something to do with faking it or with breaking Amy's heart or with flaunting Liam in front of her (even if she didn't _mean_ to do that) and definitely _every single moment_ that involved Reagan, except maybe the last one.

_I think she understands. And so do I._

Yeah. That was a good one. In that one moment, Karma understood - maybe for the first time - what Amy had done for her, what she had given up when she gave her and Liam her blessing, and how much that had hurt and, oddly enough, how _good_ it had felt. She knew, in that moment, what Amy must have seen in her eyes - the happiness and the hope and the, God help her, _love_ \- and how even through the pain, knowing she had given that to Karma…

She'd never realized how strong and brave and selfless Amy had been in that moment and so, yeah, Karma thought of that moment, that _last_ moment, with Reagan as a good one. Good for _Amy_ and really, that's what matters. That's all Karma's ever wanted, more than anything, more than her own popularity, more than her own love, more than her own happiness.

Well… usually.

She's a teenage girl and that means she's gonna be selfish and she's gonna be stupid and she's gonna make choices she's not proud of. And there's a moment, right _now_ , the tiniest of tiny ones, just before her fist connects with Jack's jaw (and there's a _lot_ of that going around lately) when Karma thinks that maybe - just _maybe_ \- this is one of _those_ choices.

It lasts barely a second, less than a heartbeat, not even as long as it takes her to exhale the breath she sucks in before she swings. It's gone before she really even notices it's there and _that_ makes it like so many of those choices, the not so proud ones. Something she'd probably do differently, something she'd know was wrong and definitely not one of her better plans.

Kinda like stealing a picture from a truck or kissing a girl who wasn't hers.

And just like with so many of those choices, Karma doesn't see it, she doesn't feel it, she doesn't even _notice_ the moment, she doesn't recognize the second's worth of doubt or concern as she pulls back her fist. She doesn't register the momentary doubt that crosses her mind as her arm uncoils and she sends that first hurtling toward his face. All she does notice, all that does register?

It's _him_. It's the one person - maybe the _only_ person - who ever hurt Amy more than she did and he's standing there, with that same dumb fuck look on his face she remembers from her childhood. The one he always had when he'd forgotten something - like a birthday or a holiday or that it was fucking _Wednesday_ and he was supposed to pick Amy up from school cause Farrah was at work and instead he left her standing on the curb and Karma's parents had taken her instead and Amy had spent the night until Farrah could pick her up on Thursday and Jack still hadn't remembered - the look that had made tiny Karma feel things that her tiny heart couldn't quite understand but even then, even as a kid, her mind had made the connection.

That look. Amy's tears.

_That_ , she sees. That look on his face and just by itself, it would be bad enough but that's not _all_ , she sees or hears or feels. It's that look _and_ it's the sound of her name on his lips _and_ it's the sight of him next to Liam (of all _fucking_ people and sometimes Karma swears the fucking universe is out to get her).

But mostly?

It's that _hand_.

His hand. Jack's hand. The one he's got on _her_ arm, not her as in Karma, but her as in Lucy as in _her,_ as in the girl that was with Liam (cause _of course_ she was), as in the girl who called _him_ 'dad' and fuck all, that's just too fucking much.

It's Lucy that's standing there and Lucy that Jack's reaching for - so very _not_ forgotten - and it's Lucy that's Amy's… _fuck_ … Amy's _sister_.

(and just when Karma was starting to get used to Lauren)

It's _Lucy_ that Jack's touching, it's Lucy that Jack's showing concern for and Karma knows (she _knows_ ) somewhere deep down that Jack _did_ act like a father toward Amy at some point, that he wasn't always a drunk drugged out forgetful bastard but even though she _knows_ it, she can't _remember_ it. She can't see it in her mind's eye, she can't see him holding Amy while she cried or taking her for ice cream or even holding her while she blew out her birthday candles and she knows there's a fucking _picture_ of that.

All Karma can see is that look and Amy's tears and the way Farrah held her while Karma pleaded with her parents to adopt her and all she can _remember_ is that moment, the first time she ever hated anyone and that's more that tiny Karma's heart - the one that still beats in not so tiny Karma's chest - can fucking take.

So, she may not notice the moment of doubt but she does notice _that_ and then she _really_ notices the feeling of her knuckles slamming into Jack's chin. She notices the way her skin splits along the points of impact, the sudden sharp burning sensation as the punch draws blood - hers _and_ his - and there's a moment (another one), maybe a little longer, maybe not quite so tiny, maybe fucking _huge_ actually, the kind of moment Karma's quite sure she could sink into and revel in and remember _forever_.

The moment when that look shatters on his face and that hand falls from _her_ arm and Jack's toppling backward toward the sidewalk. The moment when Lucy's running to her father's side and Liam's standing there with a look on his face - one that _screams_ 'Thank God it wasn't me this time' - and Karma can only think that as good as it felt and as much as she'll never regret it?

It wasn't enough.

Not fucking _nearly_.

And then the doubts do come, then the moments of second guessing and questioning and _oh fuck fuck fuck_ come surging into the thrashing rapids of her mind and Karma realizes, there's gonna be questions, there's gonna be _a lot_.

Why did she punch a man she's never met?

Why does she look so happy about it?

Why? Why? Just… _why_?

And maybe, she thinks, for just a moment, she didn't think this through.

But then she's already halfway down the street, her bloody and already swelling hand at her side, and Jack's not even up off the pavement - he's got the good sense to stay down, unlike _some_ people who never know when to quit - and Liam's calling after her and Lucy's crying over her father (her _father_ ) ( _her_ father) and staring at Karma as she walks away.

Let Jack explain, she thinks. He's got that coming, maybe even more than the punch. Let _him_ explain who she is and let _him_ explain why she punched him in his jackass lying deserting good for nothing face and let him _lie lie lie_ like she's sure he's always done.

And if he doesn't? If he can't? If he can't figure out how to lie and weasel and bullshit his way out of this one?

Then he'll have to tell the truth.

To _everyone_.

Karma pauses, for just a moment - a tiny one, really - on the sidewalk as she realizes what she's done and she sees the spirals of it, the ripples in the water as it flows out from Jack to Lucy to Liam to her to…

_Amy._

There are choices Karma's made that she's proud of and there are some she'll regret forever and she's really not sure right this very second which of those this choice is but then she remembers that look and she remembers tears and Wednesdays and Thursdays and her best friend's pain. And she knows.

She didn't have a choice at all.

* * *

Reagan's reading street signs and _trying_ to listen to her GPS but that's not exactly the easiest thing to do when she's also trying (not horribly hard) to ignore Amy's hand on her thigh and Amy's warm breath on her ear and Amy's _other_ hand tickling the hairs along the back of her neck.

"I should have dropped you at home," she mutters, the last word coming out in a shudder as Amy nips lightly at her ear. "Your house _was_ on the way here," she says. "It would have made so much more sense."

_That_ would have been the simpler plan. Drop Amy at home, let her visit with Farrah and Bruce and Nana - who had apparently decided to extend her visit and no, Reagan had _no_ idea what could have inspired that - while Reagan scouted out the coffee shop, making sure she knew where she had to go for her meeting with Mr. Lee tomorrow.

"You need to see your family sometime, Shrimps," she'd argued. "You can't spend _all_ your time with -"

Amy had cut her off and then - in relatively short order - won that argument,as she had most every one they'd had the last few days, by playing dirty.

And then playing dirty _again_.

And one more time. Just for good measure.

Reagan had a hard time - fucking _impossible_ time, really - arguing when she could barely catch her breath and when she could still feel Amy _everywhere_ and she could barely stand. She hadn't quite realized the monster she'd created - or _unleashed_ at the very least - when she and Amy had finally slept together, but now that beast is out of its cage and Reagan's not entirely sure she's going to be able to survive it.

Not that she's minding the finding out.

Except that navigation, even on streets she remembers from her childhood, is a _hell_ of a lot easier when Amy's _hands_ aren't roaming and Amy's _tongue_ isn't flicking against her ear and her neck and Amy's _voice_ isn't recounting their last… encounter… in _vivid fucking detail_ (and how had Reagan _not_ known how erotic _hearing_ about how good she tastes could be?) and so, if she misses a street or two or three and finds herself driving in a giant fucking square and ending up right back where she started, it's _totally_ not her fault.

_In 500 feet, turn right on Mulberry Street_

The GPS says right, but Reagan swears it's a left and no, she hasn't been in this part of town in years and yes, they've made some changes, but she's pretty sure rerouting entire streets isn't one of them.

_In 300 feet, turn right on Mulberry Street_

Right. But no. Left. It's a fucking _left_.

_In 100 feet_ , _turn_ _right_ …

"Fuck it," Reagan mumbles, reaching down between them, her hand squeezing into the few (so very _few_ ) inches of space between her and Amy (and seatbelt laws, apparently, be damned cause Amy isn't even a little buckled in), fumbling for the phone. "Shimps, please…"

She's asking Amy to scoot, to let her get to the phone.

She's not surprised _Amy_ doesn't hear it _that_ way and she's even less surprised when Amy's lips find her neck again and she's not really surprised at all when she tips her head back to make it easier for the blonde and she is a _little_ surprised that she's able to concentrate long enough to pull the truck over - just before the right (no, _left_ ) on Mulberry - and park them along the curb, shutting the engine off (barely) before turning and capturing Amy's lips with her own.

"Never pictured you as the makeout on the street corner type," Reagan mumbles into the breaths between kisses, fumbling blindly with the buckle for her seatbelt and laughing lightly as Amy finds it for her and deftly pops it with one hand.

"You complaining?" Amy asks and Reagan shakes her head as she turns in her seat, pulling Amy closer as her legs slip around the blonde and her hands roam up underneath Amy's shirt, earning her a low moan from her girlfriend.

Two can play dirty.

It's more fun that way.

"We can't spend… all day… _fuck_ … making out in the truck, though," Reagan manages - barely - as Amy's hands slip from the seatbelt to just under the hem of her shirt, tracing tiny circles on her skin, Amy's fingertips just barely dancing across Reagan's flesh. "I promised Nana I'd have you home in time for dinner."

"Fuck dinner," Amy murmurrs, the vibrations of the words rolling across the skin of Reagan's neck. "Unless you'd rather spend time with my grandmother than with me…" She punctuates the question with her hand, sliding up up up, and Reagan catches it, gripping Amy's wrist through her own shirt, just before it reaches its intended destination.

"Shrimps," she says through gritted teeth. "Not here. Not…" Amy's _other_ hand works between them, fumbling with the button and then the zipper of Reagan's jeans and _fuck_ she never knew it could be so fucking hot to be _wanted_. "Amy… please."

The hand between them stills and Amy sits back - just a little - so she can see Reagan. "You don't want…" Her voice trails off and there's this look in her eyes Reagan's never seen before, but she knows it in a heartbeat.

"Of course, I _want_ ," she says, pulling Amy closer again and kissing her. It lasts longer than she intended (like _you_ could stop kissing _Amy_ ) and she's out of breath - again - when she finally manages to push Amy away. "You're _all_ I want, Shrimps. Well… you and maybe _some_ dinner cause I think we've burned off every calorie I've consumed for the past three days… but, yes, I _want_. _Always_."

That look is still there, in Amy's eyes, but it's faint and it's fading and Reagan reaches out a hand and traces it lightly across her girlfriend's cheek. Amy turns into the contact and brings her own hand to cover Reagan's.

"I just… I'm new to all this and I thought maybe you were getting…"

"Getting what?" Reagan asks, managing to keep the laughter out of her voice but not the smile from her face. "Tired of you? Bored with you? Sick of feeling you under me and over me and inside me?" She leans forward in her seat, tipping her forehead against Amy's and kissing her lightly on the nose. "Never, never, never, never, and _not in this or any other lifetime_."

Amy returns the smile and that look fades - not completely, but _enough_ , enough for now - and she nods. "OK. Just checking," she says and she settles back into her own seat, but keeps her tight grip on Reagan's hand. "And just so you know.. I may have to… check… again later."

Reagan squeezes her hand. "Give me a couple hours, a decent meal, and like _all_ the fluids and I'll be good to go." Amy laughs and Reagan spins back behind the wheel. "But first, since you made me drag you all the way out here -"

"You're a grown up," Amy says. "I can't make you do anything."

Reagan side eyes her as she starts Lightning back up. "Oh, I think there's a _few_ things you can make me do," she says. "Surprisingly well, actually." Amy blushes but she can't hide the proud little smile that crosses her face. "But for now," Reagan says, "we're gonna find this coffee shop so I know where I'm going tomorrow cause, clearly, I don't have a clue."

Amy plucks the phone from between the seats and studies the screen. "GPS says it's a right here."

"Of _course_ it does," Reagan says. She glances across the street, trying to remember landmarks or spots or anything from when she was a kid. "It says right, I say left."

"Trust the technology," Amy says. "It's got, you know, satellites and shit."

Reagan laughs and reaches over, taking the phone from Amy's hand. "Yeah, satellites and shit," she mutters, flicking her finger across the screen, scrolling the map up and then down and then all around. She pauses on a spot not that far from where they are and holds the phone out so Amy can see. "That was my grandparent's house when I was a kid. My mom's parents."

It's a spot on the screen, might as well be dust or dirt or a speck of something or other but Amy hears it in her girlfriend's voice. There's this… mix… a little happy, a dash of sad, a pinch of anger and a whole fucking cup's worth of not knowing what the hell to do with any of it.

Amy imagines that's what she sounds like when she (almost never) talks about her dad. Or Karma. And when did she ever think she'd be thinking about _them_ in even remotely the same way.

"My mom used to bring me and Glenn to see them," Reagan says, her eyes fixed on some spot out the window. "Whenever she and my dad would fight… she'd pack us up and bring us to Gramma and Papa and let us run free in the backyard for hours."

It was, Reagan remembers, a huge yard, big enough to seem like a forest or a jungle or the fucking _Amazon_ to a pair of under ten year olds appreciative of the chance to escape the yelling (her mother) and the crying (her father) and the…

"Mess."

Amy's head snaps up from the phone. "What?"

"Mess," Reagan says again, softly. "It was such a… that's the only word… mess. Just a fucking mess."

Amy slides across the seat and wraps an arm around Reagan's waist, resting her chin on the older girl's shoulder. "You don't talk about it much," she says. "Not that _I'm_ one to talk but…"

"They had a swing set," Reagan says and she notices (so fucking clearly) the way Amy doesn't even flinch at the fucking oddity, at the seeming randomness of it all. "Glenn used to push me, always sending me higher and higher and… I think he was trying to launch me into space, get rid of the tiny pain in his ass."

She laughs a little at the memory and Amy's grip tightens, almost imperceptibly.

"I tried pushing him once," Reagan says. "And I was doing really well, not as well as him cause short arms and all, but he was getting some height." She runs a finger along the edge of the steering wheel, tracing a tiny line over and over. "And then I heard my dad get there, he'd come to get us, and I heard the car door slam and then my mom and…"

And then the swing came back but she wasn't watching, she was _looking_ , staring toward the front, toward the house, to the slamming door and the raised voice and she wanted to run, she wanted to barrel through the miles and miles and miles of yard and trees and crash through the house and clutch at her father's leg and beg him to take her home.

"I wasn't watching and the swing came back," she says. "And it caught me right in the face and busted my lip open and knocked a tooth out and my nose… the blood just wouldn't _stop_."

Amy rests a hand on Reagan's cheek and turns her face gently toward her. She looks her up and down (and all around) and smiles gently. "Looks good now, though."

Reagan snorts and smiles and shakes her head. "Yeah," she says. "My Papa ended up calling an ambulance and I got to ride in it and they even put the sirens on for me," she laughs again at the memory. "Glenn was _so_ jealous."

She glances down at the phone screen and does the mental math, of a sort. _In 500 feet, turn left on Mulberry. In 1000 feet, turn right on Kohn. In 300 feet, turn left on King_.

_Your destination will be on the right._

Except that's not her destination. Not anymore. Not for a very long time. About eight years or so.

Give or take.

"GPS is right," Reagan says. "We turn here. I remember now." Amy slides back into her own seat and Reagan turns the engine over and hands her back the phone. "Turn the voice off," she says. "I like taking orders from you better."

Amy blushes again - while also filing that little bit of information away for future reference - and mutes the GPS. Reagan takes the first turn without direction and they're off again, in search of the (so far) elusive coffee shop.

"Turn left on Hills," Amy says and Reagan does. "Turn right on Meyer," she orders and Reagan does as directed. "Um… it's the next street up. Right on Frederick."

Reagan nods and makes the turn, pulling to a stop at a red light three blocks from the shop and it's at that moment that she kinda (more than kinda) (a lot more) (like _a lot a lot_ more) wishes she'd listened to her own GPS and gone the wrong way again and kept going that way on and on and on, forever.

Cause there's Karma. And there's Karma punching some guy in the face while Liam (cause _of course_ ) and some girl Reagan doesn't know (Liam moves fast, apparently) and, at first, she thinks it's some kind of lover's spat, some kind of Liam getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar kinda thing but that doesn't make sense because Karma's punching the _other_ guy and then…

Well.

Then Reagan _sees_ the other guy. She sees him hit the pavement and she sees the other girl (whoever the fuck _she_ is) running to his side and she sees Liam looking between Karma and the guy and he looks confused (what the fuck else is _new_ ) and then Karma's storming off in their direction and she gets to about a block and a half from them and pauses, just for a moment, before she keeps walking, turning left at the corner and disappearing out of sight but that's fine cause Reagan's not looking at her anyway.

She's looking at him.

And yeah, he's older and the beard's gone and he doesn't look drunk and he's bleeding (and for a fleeting moment, Reagan's _proud_ of Karma) but it's still him. The him she saw in all those pictures at Thanksgiving. The him she's seen in the small stash of photos Amy's got hidden in her desk that she thinks no one knows about.

And the light turns green.

"In 400 feet," Amy says, still staring at the screen. "Your destination will be on the right."


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So a while ago I mentioned the last chapter for this story and how I had it written. Well, with the show ending and there likely being a lot of people moving on... it seems like time. And honestly, though I know what happens next with Amy and her dad and Karma and all, I don't really have the heart for that much angst anymore, not with this story, at least. This started off with a little angst and a little funny and a lot of love so I think it's time it went back there. So, bad news (if you're still reading) the story's almost done. Good news: almost. Turns out the last chapter was a bit longer than I would have thought and there were things that needed a little more to wrap up. So this isn't it, not yet. I'm thinking three or four chapters, probably. Hopefully y'all like it and stick around long enough (I promise no more months between updates). This is set ten years from the end of the last chapter and the rest I think you can get as you go. Feel free to comment, like, flame me, whatever :)

Amy's freaking out.

Not that _that's_ anything all that unusual. She spent the better portion of her teenage years in what seemed like one long perpetual freak out. Not without reason, but still… she'd thought by now she'd be over it. She _thought_ she'd be over it years ago. Twenty or maybe twenty-one, that was the cut off for overly emotional totally random extreme wig outs, right?

She'd thought (and by thought, she meant _hoped_ or _wished_ or, really, _prayed_ ) that by twenty-six, she'd be over it all, that she'd be ready for whatever life threw at her. After all, life had chucked its fair (or _more_ than fair) share at her already.

Sudden discovery of your sexuality? Piece of nut free cake. Falling in love with and then being rejected by your best friend? Been _there_ , done _that_ , got the t-shirt, then shrunk it in the wash and passed it on to Lauren. Dad disappearing then reappearing and oh, bringing along _another_ sibling (and did we mention said sibling was also of the queer persuasion)? Walk in the fucking park.

If she could handle that, Amy thought, then there was nothing she couldn't handle.

Even a wedding. Even _her_ wedding.

Silly silly girl. ( _Woman._ ) (26 and all.)

It's T-minus eighteen hours until her wedding, the wedding she's waited her entire life for. And yes, she _has_ waited that long even if she hasn't been _Karma_ (or Lauren) ( _especially_ Lauren) and planned it all for years, making notes and sketches and diagrams and mock seating charts and color coded flower layouts and exacting specifications for the perfect dress.

Amy's waited. She hasn't gone _insane_.

And so, yeah, maybe she didn't really _start_ thinking about it as early as Karma (eight) or Lucy (ten) or Lauren (in the fucking _womb_ ) and maybe when she _did_ start thinking about it, it might have featured someone _else_ (a certain redhead) standing across from her and maybe _then_ she had more detailed imaginings of the entire thing.

(Or, really, _mostly_ of the food.) (And the honeymoon.) (And the food on the honeymoon.)

But _now_ , she's got the _right_ girl ( _woman_ ) and the food is being handled (Lauren) and the honeymoon is taken care of (even if it is a secret) (and Reagan's loving every second of knowing and _not_ telling) and maybe it's only been ten years since she really, honest and true started thinking about it.

She's been thinking about it and thinking _about_ thinking about it (and trying to pretend that she _wasn't_ thinking about it) since she mentioned china patterns and joint checking and ooooh… maybe someone got them that whole house stereo system (cause _of course_ Reagan registered for it), never mind that they don't have a _house_ just yet (just Reagan's condo) but _that's_ on the _list_ ( _their_ list, not one of Lauren's lists) (not the kind that takes an entire three-ring binder) (just a piece of note paper, taped to the fridge.)

Wedding. House. Dog (a _second_ one.) Yard (for the dog.) Kid. ( _Not_ for the dog.)

Usually, imagining the list and everything on it soothes Amy. Usually, it's her happy place, the place she escapes to when her father's pissing her off (every Wednesday at three) or Reagan's stressing about all the money she's pouring into Planter's ( _all_ of it) (everything they have) or Lauren and Karma are… being Lauren and Karma. Usually, five minutes envisioning the list puts Amy's mind at ease.

_Usually_ she's not less than _a day_ from her wedding and _usually_ the list is far off and not something that might become reality _any fucking day now_ and that's all settling in now and so, yeah, she's freaking out just _a little._

And by a little, she totally means totally losing her shit.

"Two hours," she says, resting her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. "I've got two hours to decide and I don't have the first fucking _clue_."

Lauren and Reagan are sitting on either side of her around the big wooden table at the back of Planter's. It's the only original one left, the only one that survived the fire. Amy's always taken that as an omen of sorts. It was _this_ table that they all sat around together that first time, the night they all graduated. It wasn't a party, not really, more like a dinner, a _family_ dinner (that was what Reagan called it) (under her breath) (and promised she'd _kill_ Amy if she ever told anyone, so of course Amy announced it to the entire table.) It was her and Reagan and Karma and Lauren and Theo (the fucker) and Liam ( _bigger_ fucker) and Shane and Lucy. And then there were her parents (all _three_ ) and Martin and Glenn and Nana too.

It was crowded and it was loud and there was hardly room on the table for all the food and Lauren and Liam barely spoke and Lucy kept staring at Karma like she was the most beautiful and wondrous thing in the world (it's gotta be in the genes) and Amy's pretty sure Nana dumped her entire plate of cheese fries in Jack's lap on purpose.

It was the happiest night of her life.

And so even if she's not quite as 'hippity-dippity' (Jack's words) as the Ashcrofts, Amy's still of a mind that if a fire that damn near gutted the place left only one table unscathed and it was _their_ table?

Gotta be a sign of something.

And maybe, she's often thought, she's not the only one to think so. After all, Lauren even caved and agreed to let Jana host the rehearsal dinner ( _after_ Amy threatened not to have one at all), though she did draw the line at the reception, which, as it turned out, was only the _first_ of Lauren's 'lines'.

The flowers, Lauren said, had to be pink. The flowers, Amy replied, definitely needed to _not_ be pink and, quite frankly, really didn't need to _be_ (like as in _at all_ ) but Reagan stepped in (as she _always_ did) and negotiated them both off _that_ ledge and so the flowers _will_ be and they'll be in a lovely shade of purple.

The bridesmaid dresses (as in the three) (Karma, Lauren, Lucy) had to be… well… _dresses_.

"I can pull off a suit," Lauren insisted. "I _can_ pull that shit off like nobody's business. But… no."

Amy had intended to draw her _own_ line there but then Karma and Lucy had lined up right behind Lauren and... yeah… her sisters _and_ her best friend?

Amy never stood a chance.

"It is _my_ wedding, right?" she asked Reagan and Reagan said that of course it was.

(Right after she got done laughing.) (Or maybe _while_ she was laughing.) (The laughing went on for _a while_ so it was hard for Amy to tell.)

They'd… _discussed_ … the reception and the menu and the music. Lauren thought fancy (the _fanciest_ ) (Reagan had money now, even if it was all getting pumped into the repairs and even if, technically, the family of the _bride_ was supposed to pay, but there were two of _those_ , so…) and fine dining (there were things on the menu Amy couldn't pronounce and even she drew her food line _somewhere_ ) and she had the perfect little band all picked out.

"Felix and Oliver, you remember them right? From senior year?" Lauren asked, oblivious to the way the color drained from Amy's face. "They've got this adorable little jazz fusion ensemble and they do swinged up versions of all the classics _and_ a lot of modern stuff and why _the fuck_ are you laughing Reagan? I'm _serious_."

In the end (which was like eight _months_ ago and Amy can hardly believe it's been _that_ long already) they compromised (read: Reagan chose.) Reception at a fancy hotel downtown, but not _the_ fanciest. A menu full of things Amy can actually _say_ but still might not _eat_. And a DJ, one of Reagan's old friends from the circuit.

(And _not_ the only two boys in all of Austin to have crushed madly on Amy Raudenfeld.)

(And, if by some strange happenstance, a fried bacon doughnut burger with extra cheese - but light on BBQ sauce cause _dress_ \- arrives on Amy's plate at the head table?)

(Lauren knows nothing, she's Jon fucking Snowing that shit.)

But that was all _then_ and this is _now_ and _this_ is Amy freaking out.

"Two _hours_ ," she moans again. "How can I be expected to make a decision like this in two _hours_?"

"Technically," Lauren says as she flips through a small pile of index cards, reviewing and re-reviewing last minute details. "You've had two _years_." Amy glares at her from across the table, a stare fierce enough to make Satan cringe (she's learned a thing or two from her sister _and_ her girlfriend over the years) but Lauren doesn't blink. "You've been engaged for two years, Amy. Deciding who's going to walk you down the aisle probably should have come up before now."

"It _has_ ," Reagan says quietly. She's nursing another beer (Lauren's not sure if it's number three or number four but she's still about two more sips from cutting Bride #2 off.) "It _really_ has."

Amy doesn't look at either of them. Instead she turns back to her own notes, piled neatly on the table in front of her. There's two stacks, both laid out in a very clear and organized fashion and Lauren can't help but feel a little pride.

Stack #1: The pros of Bruce. (Lauren's fond of that one.)

Stack #2: The pros of Jack. (No one, save for maybe Amy, is fond of that one.)

(Jack's stuck around and Jack's worked hard and Jack's explained it all - _and_ Jack brought them Lucy, which is like the best thing _ever_ \- but… yeah…)

(Jack's still Jack. And all those years are still all those fucking years.)

_That's_ the reason Amy's consciously avoided making 'cons' lists because she knows one of _those_ lists would easily outdistance the other and somehow that doesn't seem quite… fair… so she's sticking with the pluses and ignoring the minuses. Ignoring them as best she can, at least.

"I _have_ thought about it," she says. "I've _been_ thinking about it. Constantly, Over and over again. It's _all_ I've been thinking about for _weeks_."

"She's not lying," Reagan says, taking another sip.

Lauren glances between them - the dueling brides - and yeah, she knows from some of her father's ill fated trips down the aisle that a lot of weddings come with stress and aggravation and a few hurt (or stomped, trampled, and mangled) feelings.

But this is something… _else_.

"So you've been thinking," Lauren says to Amy, though all the while she's keeping one eye on Reagan. "And?"

"And I'm _fucked_ ," Amy says and from the way Reagan rolls her eyes, Lauren's getting the idea that Amy might be more right than she knows. "Either way… it doesn't matter _who_ I pick. Someone gets hurt."

Reagan takes a long pull on her beer and sets the bottle down. It bangs against wood like a gunshot and (almost) every head in the place turns to look.

"Sorry," she mumbles, her thumb tapping against the side of the bottle.

Amy doesn't notice and keeps right on rolling. "If I pick my father because, well, he's _my father_ ," she says, "I'm sure Bruce would understand _but_ Bruce… he's been a dad to me for the last ten years, through all of it. Which is more than I can say for Jack…"

"So pick Bruce," Reagan says and there's a clear ripple (or tidal fucking wave) of 'so done with it' to her tone except Amy seems to _actively_ mistake or ignore or not even notice it.

Lauren's not sure which of those is the worst possibility.

"But Jack is still my _dad_ ," Amy says (and Lauren resists pointing out that if biology is her only argument, it's really no fucking contest.) "And things are better now and counseling has helped and he's stuck around and he's really _trying_."

(How fucking noble of him, right?)

"So that's settled then," Reagan says. "It's Jack."

Lauren can practically see Reagan counting it down in her head and she's sure the dynamic duo have played _this_ game before, they've probably spent many an hour going back and forth - playing ping-pong-pops - and she can only imagine how… frustrating (that's the nicest word she can come up with) dealing with an indecisive (and clearly fucking clueless) Amy has been.

"I _would_ ," Amy says. "But _Bruce…_ "

Reagan takes one last drink, glaring angrily at the bottle when it turns out to be empty and slides it into the middle of the table, watching as it spins and twirls and tips over. "Maybe," she says, "you should have them _both_ do it."

Even Karma would have picked up on _that_ tone but Amy…

"I thought of that," she says. "But how silly would _that_ look? A dad on each arm? I'd look so indecisive."

(As opposed to now, right?)

Reagan grunts (Lauren's pretty sure the sound is mostly cover for the 'fuck this' she hears) and stands, pushing her chair back, skidding it loudly across the floor. "I need some air," she says and Amy and Lauren watch her walk (run) (it's a fucking _sprint_ ) and Amy turns to her sister, the confusion on her face just about tripling at Lauren's expression.

"What?" she asks.

"What _what_?" Lauren replies.

"That look," Amy says. "I _know_ that look. That's your 'Amy, you so dumb' look, the 'Amy, your foot is brushing your teeth again' look." Her eyes narrow. "What did I do?"

Lauren doesn't say anything. The look says it all.

"I _didn't…_ " Amy pauses, running over the entire conversation in her mind because she _knows_ she didn't, but Lauren _thinks_ (clearly) that she _did_ and they've been sisters long enough now that Amy knows a Lauren 'think' usually trumps an Amy 'know'.

Usually.

(Usually = _always_.)

"I was talking about my two dads and who's going to walk me down the aisle," Amy says. "And you agree with me, right? I mean it would look _so_ stupid for me to have _both_ of them do it."

Lauren nods. "Especially since…"

"Especially since mom's family still hates my father," Amy says.

(Farrah's family and a lot of Jack's family and the Ashcrofts and Glenn - just on principle - and the Bookers, but they're not invited, so fuck _them_.)

"And…" Lauren prompts.

"And since dad's side of the family might not like him but they don't like Bruce even more," Amy says and Lauren sighs and Amy knows that was the wrong answer.

If she only knew why.

"True," Lauren says (and the agreement worries Amy cause that's _never_ good.) "And also because Reagan…"

"Reagan won't have any…" Amy trails off as she sees it, sees it so fucking clearly. "Fuck," she mutters. "Fuck fuck _fuck_."

Lauren nods. "Yeah," she says. "Fuck."

Amy puts her head back in her hands. "I'm an idiot," she says, tilting her head to look at Lauren who doesn't disagree. "Why didn't you stop me?"

Lauren rests a hand on her sister's arm. "You're marrying the woman Amy, you're spending the rest of your lives together. You think I'm gonna be there _every_ time you say something stupid?"

"Yes?"

Lauren laughs but it dies on the vine as she spots Glenn walking in.

_Speaking of saying something stupid…_

"Go," she tells Amy. "Go fix it. Go yank your foot out of your mouth and tell him - _her_ \- the things she needs to hear and make this right."

Amy either misses the slip or is too caught up in her own mess to call Lauren on it, which is good (fucking _great_ ) because the last thing she needs is to have to try and explain her and Glenn and their… _whatever_ … to Bride #1.

"How?" Amy asks. "What… how… I have no idea how to fix _this_."

"You'll think of something," Lauren says. "And you'd _better_. Because in eighteen hours, _someone_ needs to be walking _somebody_ down the aisle." She stands and pats Amy on the shoulder as she eyes Glenn across the room. "And I swear to God, Amy, if you fuck this up after all my work?"

Lauren leans over and kisses Amy on top of the head and it's nothing like a mafia kiss of death _at all_.

"Fuck this up?" Lauren says, "and there won't be a honeymoon destination in the world far enough for you to hide from me."


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This one's a little different. It's been ten years and a lot has happened so pieces will start falling into place. And there's a little surprise... And hey, if you're reading, let me know! I like hearing from y'all, even if it's to yell at me about that surprise...

It's the little things that do it.

Most of the time, Karma's OK. She says that she doesn't think about it (she _does_ ) (a _little_ ) (not nearly as often as Reagan, she's _sure_ ) and that when she _does_ , it's just for a quick moment, a blip, a second or two on the radar and then it's just… gone. She pushes it off and she moves on with her day and her life and it doesn't hurt and it doesn't haunt.

Not till the next time at least.

Of course, most of that is a lie, though not a _big_ one. She doesn't think of it _that_ often, not every day (maybe just every _other_ ) and when she does, she doesn't think of it for _that_ long (maybe just a moment or two or three or however many it takes for the hollow in her stomach to fill or for the tears to pass.) And most of the time she _can_ push it off and she has gone on with her days and her life. She really has.

And so what if _that_ sometimes makes it hurt _worse_? That's normal. That's what her shrink says and what her mother says and even if Shane doesn't _say_ it, she knows - just from the look in his eyes - that he feels it too.

Of course, there _are_ times when she can't help but think of it, times when there's no need to pretend she doesn't or that it doesn't bother her. The anniversary, for one. There's been four of them now, starting with the one where they planted the tree and buried the bronze plaque with his name (with both their names, his _and_ Martin's) in the ground and Amy said a few words cause she and Reagan and Shane just… couldn't (and Lauren _wouldn't_ ) and she and Reagan stood there, together, long after everyone else had gone and just… held each other.

There's his birthday too, when she and Shane sit in the grass outside the Hester art room and share a slice or two of cake (German chocolate, his favorite) ( _without_ a candle) and remember… well… they try to remember the good but even the bad… and let's face it, there was _plenty_ of that… it somehow seems less.

Two years ago, Amy joined them and again last year and Lauren… she walked by ( _quickly_ ) but she paused long enough to kiss Karma on top of the head and if that was as close as she could ever come to being sad about it…

Karma will take it.

And there's Father's Day and Emma's birthday, just three days apart so at least _that_ little bit of torture is done quick and easy.

Quick, at least.

Those are the times Karma can't help it, but sometimes… sometimes it isn't something she sees coming. It's not an anniversary or a date she has marked on her calendar or a moment she's been anticipating for weeks. Sometimes it sneaks up on her and surprises her and _those_ … they're the moments when it hits the hardest and it hurts the worst.

Those are the moments - the moments just like this, kneeling on the back of the small stage at Planter's, about to plug in an amp when she sees the cord in her hand and she sees the outlet but she can feel the _heat_ and smell the _smoke_ \- when it sinks in, like a knife buried to the hilt and she can't skirt around it and she can't ignore it and another slice of cake or another cuddly bear added to the pile on her guest bed just won't cut it.

Those - _these_ \- are the moments when she truly remembers that Liam is dead and his daughter is gone and a part of her world left with them both.

* * *

_**Eight Years Ago** _

"You had to tell me? You _had to tell ME?"_

Sometimes (a lot of times) ( _all_ the fucking times) Karma wonders what the hell she ever saw in Liam fucking Booker.

"I'm sorry," he says, the words tripping off his tongue with ease, like this _isn't_ the thousand and first time he's said _that_ to her, like the words haven't lost all fucking meaning by now.

She thinks he knows that, but he's Liam. He doesn't know what else to say.

(And, apparently, _nothing at all_ , is not an option.)

"I don't want you to be sorry," she yells, but then she remembers her parents are right downstairs and the last time she and Liam had a… moment… and she yelled, her father charged up the stairs and ended up having one of his… episodes… and Karma really doesn't feel like spending seven hours in the ER tonight. "I don't want you to be _sorry_ ," she says again, quieter this time. "I want you to be _gone_. Out of here. Away. Somewhere that isn't _here_ and why aren't you fucking _moving_?"

"You said you'd help," he says and he's _right_ (even a blind fucking squirrel…) and not for the first or _last_ time, Karma regrets ever agreeing to helping him with his counseling.

_He's trying_ , she told Amy. _He's making an effort_ , she said to her mother. _He needs me_ , she said to _herself_ (and _that_ was the fucking clincher and - even if she fucking _hated_ it - Karma knew she couldn't _resist_ it.)

But now… _this_? Fuck… rage and abandonment and trust issues, her fucking _ass_. He's not a psych case, he's a fucking douche canoe.

But, in so many ways, he's _her_ douche canoe and it was her _and_ her lies _and_ her choices (good and bad) (mostly bad) that helped him (and her) (and _all_ of them) here and here isn't as bad a place as it once was and he _is_ trying.

Or… he _was_.

"What the fuck," Karma spits, "makes you think _this_ has anything to do with me _helping_? What makes you think I need or want or fucking _should_ have to know that you let your fucking dick think for you - _again_ \- and got some random girl from some random party pregnant?"

Liam doesn't say anything which, Karma (in all fairness) has to note is some sort of improvement. He's not defending himself or trying to argue or giving some lame bullshit about her (the random one from the random party) (not _her_ ) being anything but some nameless skank…

Wait…

Karma pushes right up into his face, backing him against the wall. "She _is_ some random girl, _right_? I don't _know_ her, do I?" He says nothing and Karma's stomach drops. She knows it's not Amy (not _again_ ) and Reagan and Lauren are right out of the fucking question and that leaves…

Oh.

Oh _fuck_ no.

"Tell me it isn't," she says. "Tell me it isn't Lucy. Tell me you didn't… Amy's sister… _my_ … tell me it's not fucking _Lucy_."

Liam shakes his head. Vigorously. "No," he says. "Not Lucy. Not her or Amy or Farrah or any Raudenfeld woman." Karma backs up, slightly, and Liam manages a breath. "You were right," he says. "She was just a random girl at a random party and… and… I'm sorry."

"Nothing for you to be _sorry_ for," Karma says. "Not to _me_. Her, maybe…"

Liam visibly deflates and Karma knows him well enough to know that maybe (OK, _not_ maybe) she said the wrong thing.

"You're right," he says again. "We shouldn't talk about this. This is too.." He turns, his hand on the doorknob. "I'll go."

"What is it?" Karma says and he freezes. "There's something _else_ isn't there? Something besides some rando carrying around another Booker spawn." Liam shakes his head (again) (and maybe he really is _trying_ ) and starts to turn the knob but pauses when Karma's hand covers his. "I'm only asking _once_ ," she says. " _What_?"

He looks down at her hand on his and yeah, they've both said they're long over _that_ but still…

Karma pulls her hand away and Liam lets his drop to his side. "She wants to give it up," he says quietly. He's not looking at her and, come to think of it, he _hasn't_ looked at her, not even once since he got here. "She wanted to have it… taken care of," he says. "That's the only reason she even told me. She knew who I was and figured I could afford to pay."

Karma's got no idea who _she_ is, but she hates _her_ already.

"Your family wouldn't cough up the cash?"

"I didn't _ask_ ," Liam says and Karma can hear it in his voice, the mild (or a bit _more_ than mild) offense that she would even think that he _might_. "I talked her out of _that_ , but I can't get her to budge on the giving her up idea."

There's a lot to process there, but Karma only hears _one_ word. "Her?"

Liam nods and there's the faintest of smiles on his face, maybe the most genuine one Karma's seen from him in years. "Yeah, it's a girl," he says. "Fitting, right? My punishment. I get to be a dad to a girl born into a world filled with guys like _me_."

There is, Karma has to admit, a certain poetic justice.

"And you don't want her to give… _her_ … up?" Karma tries to keep the surprise out of her voice, but really… she just _can't_.

"No," Liam says, ignoring the shock, he actually _expected_ it. "She's mine, Karma. She's my daughter and _I_ think that even if I'm the shittiest father of all time… at least…"

At least she'd know. She'd know him and she'd know he was hers and that, at least for one moment, he loved her enough not to deny her.

Yeah, Liam's just _full_ of fucking surprises.

"I know I said I'd help," Karma says, though she thinks this goes a bit past _help_. "But why are you telling me this? Why me and why not Shane or your counselor or your… family?"

He laughs, a short little bitter thing that doesn't match the smile at all. "My… _family…_ said if I keep her, if I try to raise her… they'll cut me off." Karma starts to say something, but Liam holds up a hand. "And I don't _care_. It isn't about the money or the power or any of that Booker bullshit. It's about _her_. If I do this, if I _try_ … I'll be trying to raise a little girl by myself with no money, no talent save for shitty pointless art, no family and, basically, one friend."

Karma can picture Shane and Liam trying to change a diaper or build a crib and she barely manages not to laugh.

(It would kinda ruin the moment.) (And they don't have a lot of those anymore.)

"I'm telling _you_ ," he says, "because you're the one person who still speaks to me who won't shred me for even thinking about it _or_ blow sunshine up my ass." He does look at her then and Karma almost has to look away. "Tell me the truth, Karma. Is this just about me? Am I being selfish? Would I just be doing more harm than good?"

Karma thinks of Bruce. She thinks of how he stepped up, of how good a father he was ( _is_ ) to Amy, of how dedicated and loving he is, and how much he treats her as if she was _his_.

_As if._

_That's_ the thing, isn't it? Karma knows Amy loves Bruce and she knows Amy thinks of him as he thinks of her. But she knows.

Bruce isn't Jack. Even after everything, even after the pain and the loss and all the damage that Amy's still trying to sort through and navigate… Jack is still… _Jack_.

He's still her _father_.

And somehow… that still counts for _something_. Maybe more than it should, but she can't even begin to imagine cause she's always _had_ Lucas and she's never known what Amy…

What Amy _and_ Liam know.

In the end, it really comes down to one simple question. "Do you love her?" Karma asks. "The baby, I mean. If giving her up was best for her, even if it kills you and even if it ruins your whole ridiculous integrity shtick… do you love her enough to do it?"

Liam tugs a piece of paper from his pocket and smooths it out on Karma's desk. _Waiver of Parental Rights_ is stamped across the top. His signature is scrawled across the bottom.

"I've been carrying this for four days," he says, blinking away tears. "And if it's what's best…"

There are moments - not very many - but they _are_ there, when Karma sees flickers of the boy she thought Liam was. Moments when she thinks that maybe if _she'd_ been the girl _he_ thought _she_ was… maybe she could have changed him. Saved him.

But she decided long ago that _that_ wasn't her job, that there was really nothing she could have done; she just didn't love him like that. She couldn't save him.

But maybe _she_ could.

"I think what's best," Karma says, "is for her to be with someone who would always put her first, who would always do _anything_ for her, who would _die_ for her." And then - and it surprises her more than him - for the first time in years, Karma hugs him.

"I think she belongs with her father."

And God help her, she _means_ it.

* * *

"It sneaks up on you, doesn't it?"

Karma's eyes never leave the cord, the outlet, the space between them and her hands don't stop trembling, not until Shane's fingers close over hers and she manages to wheeze out a single ragged breath and the world starts to move again.

"Happens to me all the time," he says, kneeling down next to her at the edge of the stage. "It's the weirdest fucking things. Loke I'll see a hot guy - so _clearly_ as gay as the day is long - and he'll be hanging with a girl and I want to call Liam up and tell him I need backup. I need my wingman."

Shane runs his thumb along the top of Karma's hand and she turns to him, sees the faraway look in his eyes and brings her other hand to his cheek. Sometimes, she thinks, they forget - all of them - that douche or not, asshole or not, royal fuck up or not…

Liam was the Karma to Shane's Amy. Maybe Shane never fell for him ( _maybe_ ), maybe there was never that extra level of… whatever… between them and maybe, when she thinks about it, Karma thinks that makes it worse. Because there was never that distance, there was never that hurt, there was never that wall - no matter how small - between them.

Liam was hers, in more ways than Karma likes to think about, but he was more Shane's than...well… anyone's. He was a Booker by name but, in the end, he was a Harvey in every way that mattered.

"There's an outlet in my house," Shane says. "Behind my couch, you know, the brown one Sasha gave me?" Karma nods, she's crashed on it a few thousand times. "I don't use it anymore," he says. "Every time I try to plug something in, there's this spark, it jumps from the wall to the plug and it's not like I ever felt it and everything I plug in there works just fine, but…"

But it's a reminder. It's a sneaky little bitch of a memory, a flicker of a moment they never _saw_ , but seeing doesn't fucking matter, not really. They didn't see the spark that set the flame.

But they saw the end. And that was… _enough_.

"It sneaks up on you and you don't know what to do," Shane says as Karma drops the cord and flips her hand over, lacing their fingers together. "Whether to fall into it and cry and wail and curse the fucking universe or…"

He wipes at his eyes with his free hand and Karma squeezes gently. "We're not supposed to… they don't under…" She tips her head back and takes a deep breath and she glances around, almost involuntarily looking for Amy or Reagan or (please, _no_ ) Lauren. "I know they all said they forgave him but…"

"But it still feels dirty," Shane says. "Grieving him. Even here… _especially_ here, what with Martin and…" Karma leans against him and he wraps an arm around her, holding her close, something he never would have imagined but now… well… his hand slides down and - for just the briefest of moments - rests against her belly.

Now, he better get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear up one thing that seemed to confuse people when I posted this elsewhere: Liam's daughter is NOT dead. Gone, yes. Dead, no.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We'll get back to Reamy soon (like next chapter), I promise. But first a little Karma and Shane and a bit of my bb Lauren. And, hopefully, some clarification of stuff people might have misunderstood from last chapter...

Karma shouldn't be worried about Lauren. She really shouldn't.

It's not like she doesn't have anything else to worry about. There's the _wedding_ , for one. Her best friend - her _family_ \- is tying the knot with the love of her life in less than a day and she's Maid of Honor and she's still got _so much_ to do (and if Lauren knew _how much_ , Karma knows she'd have _a lot_ more to worry about.) There's the bouquet and there's making sure she gets the ring from Amy _and_ there's the not so small matter of hoping she still fits in her dress.

She's not showing _yet_ , not _really_. But she _feels_ like she is, like she's already blown up like a bunch of beach balls that keep rolling and bouncing under her skin and yes, she _knows_ Shane says it's all in her head, but he's Shane and he's gay and she's a girl.

_They_ all look the same to him.

Or so he says. There was that one time she caught him giving Lucy's ass a look that lingered just a _bit_ too long. But they agreed to never speak of that again after he caught her doing the same so…

_So_ , there's the wedding and before that there's the rehearsal _and_ the dinner and _God_ , she hopes they aren't serving anything too greasy (it's _Amy's_ dinner though…) cause she'd really, really like for her morning sickness to not become _evening_ of the _rehearsal_ sickness, especially not since she has to _perform_. She knows it's only _one_ song and it's not even a _hard_ one but it _is_ the first time she and Shane and Noah have all performed together since… since…

_Fuck._ She can't even remember. College? She went to college, _right_? Yes. She went, she _remembers_. Sort of.

Karma always thought baby brain was a myth, an excuse pregnant women used to get out of doing shit they didn't want to (like they needed one besides _carrying a human fucking being in my belly_.) Now she knows better.

Some days she's lucky to remember what she had for breakfast (not _if_ she had it though, cause she swears she's never _not_ eating) (she's become _Amy_ ) and she's only three months in and God help her when it's six or seven.

Well. God help _Shane_ , really. Cause she won't remember.

Where was she? Oh, _right_. Performance. It'll be fine, Shane keeps saying. It's like riding a bike, Noah keeps telling her and she keeps pretending she doesn't notice that they're both talking to _her_ and not _each other_. It's no big deal, they both say. We can totally handle being on stage together after all these _years_ (like seven, she thinks) and all these _breakups_ (like nine, she's sure) and Karma's not entirely sure how the hell she ever agreed to this.

Oh. Wait. _Amy_ asked her. Amy asked with those eyes (the puppy kind) and that sweet smile _and_ \- mostly - with that not so small hint of a guilt trip, that tiny little mention of the kiss and the mess and the whole knowing Jack was back (and Lucy was with him) and not telling her about it and _fuck all_ … the girl's got a memory like a Goddamned elephant.

Which is about how _big_ Karma feels at the moment, so, yeah, it's not like she doesn't have _anything_ else to worry about.

Which is _exactly_ why she shouldn't be worrying about Lauren and probably _mostly_ why she _is_.

Karma watches her from the stage as _she_ watches Glenn and _Glenn_ watches his shoes or the wall or the two inches in front of his every step - anything but the girl - and Karma can't help wondering how Lauren thinks none of them know, how she can honestly believe that none of them figured it out long ago, maybe even before _she_ did. It's written all over the tiny blonde's face, in every look she gives Glenn when she thinks he isn't looking (cause she'd _never_ give him the satisfaction.) It's in the way Lauren tenses whenever he's near, not like she's nervous or angry (Lauren's _defaults_ ), not like she used to get whenever Liam was around or how she gets now every time someone mentions Theo.

It's a different kind of tension. Like she can't bear having him there but _not there_ , not _touching_ her, not _next_ to her, not _with_ her.

Even Karma can see it. And no, she knows she's not as oblivious as she used to be - the whole Amy thing (which is what she will always call it, the whole _Amy thing_ ) taught her to open her eyes, to pay a little more attention. But Karma's sure even the old her would have seen it, Lauren's just _that_ obvious.

To everyone who isn't Glenn, at least.

Still, Karma knows she shouldn't be worried about Lauren. It isn't her business and if she's sort of outgrown being oblivious, she's _really_ outgrown getting involved and - again - it's not like she doesn't have her own stuff to worry about.

_Still_ … Lauren looks so… _lost._

"You keep staring at her like that," Shane whispers, slipping up behind Karma and resting his chin on her shoulder, an arm gently looping around her waist. "And she's gonna think you're crushing on her. _Again_."

Karma swats at his hand resting lightly on her belly. "I wasn't _crushing_ ," she says. "I just… _admired_ her. How she stood up for herself and didn't take shit and how she told the bitch Brandi where to go." She side eyes Shane for a moment. "And if I remember that day correctly, I seem to recall you mentioning something about never getting turned on by a girl before either."

Shane shrugs. "It was awesome," he says. "She made Brandi cry _and_ she kicked Theo in the nuts _and_ she got a standing 'o' in the quad." He smiles at the memory, which is more than he knows Lauren would _ever_ do. "It was all very Khalessi."

Karma nods, her eyes drifting back over to Lauren who looks anything but the Dragon Queen at the moment. She lets her hand settle over Shane's and she feels her own worries ease and if that's not _the strangest_ fucking thing _ever_...

If someone had told her ten years ago that she'd ever be… comfortable… (and it's so much more than _that_ , even if she won't admit it) like _this_ , with _him_ … Karma would have told them they were insane. Out of their fucking mind.

But she's seen insane and she's seen out of their fucking mind and she and Shane aren't _that_.

Well… not _entirely_.

"I'm worried about her," she says and Shane's head pops up, cocking to one side so he can look at her. "What?" Karma asks, not bothering to look back. "That so hard to believe?"

Shane shakes his head. "No," he says and he means it. He knows Karma and Lauren are friends now - even if neither of them would ever say it _out loud_ \- and he knows Karma cares, that she _really_ cares. There was a time when Amy was the only one Karma gave even the tiniest damn about, but those days…

They died.

Literally.

There was a time when Shane wouldn't have believed Karma _could_ care, a time when he wouldn't have been able to see her as anything but selfish and self-absorbed and nothing at all like the girl Amy swore up and down she really was. But that was before.

Before Jack came back. Before Lucy. Before Amy's world cracked and crumbled and Karma refused (just fucking _refused_ ) to let her drown. Before Liam became a father and before he…

That was before he'd watched her all that time with Emma and seen the kind of woman - the kind of _mother_ \- Karma could be.

Now, Shane _knows_ Karma cares and he _knows_ that she worries - about all of them - and he _knows_ what losing Liam did, how it changed her. He was there with her, when she saw him, when she ( _they_ ) said their goodbyes to the boy they'd both loved and the man he'd just started to become. And he was there when they'd both watched Emma, sweet little Emma Lynne Booker, fade into the distance, when they'd clung to each other, praying that the car would stop and turn around and bring her _back_ , their perfect Hollywood happy ending.

Sometimes he stills sees that car disappear around the bend when he closes his eyes and those nights? Sleep is a while in coming.

So, yeah, he knows who Karma is now and he knows she cares and he understands now why, no matter what she did - and she did _a lot_ \- Amy could never really let her go. But…

_But_ , he knows that look on her face too. He knows the way her eyes keep flicking between Lauren and Glenn and he knows _why_ her forehead crinkles like _that_. She's got a plan or she's working on one, tumbling it over in her mind, working out the finer points - none of which will include all the ways it could possibly go horrifically _wrong_ \- and figuring out exactly what she's gonna do.

"I've seen that look," he says and Karma smiles, just a little, but the look doesn't fade and Shane just groans, pressing his forehead against her shoulder.

He's seen that look. He saw it before Karma told him all about her plan to force Jack to leave town (which clearly worked _so well_ ) or before she unveiled her plan to get Amy and Reagan talking again (which actually _did_ work) (though, Shane suspects that had more to do with Reagan's apology - blared through a megaphone from the top of Planter's - for keeping Jack and Lucy a secret.)

He saw it not that long ago… about seven months to be exact. Right before….

_So, how do you feel about kids?_

Yeah, Shane's seen that look and he's learned he should stay away, should run for the hills, should do everything in his power to talk Karma off the got-a-plan-ledge.

But when does he ever do what he should?

"I know you care and I know you worry," he says. And then, since he's _Shane_ … "And I know you're _really_ worried that _she's_ worried. About, you know, you messing things up."

"I am not," Karma says and _that_ would seem to be the end of _that_.

3...2...1…

"Wait," she says, her eyes snapping to his face and Shane stares straight ahead. "Is _she_ worried about that? Did she say something?" Karma's eyes flick back over to Lauren, missing the tiny smile Shane allows himself. "She did, didn't she?"

He knows he shouldn't mess with her, but he is _him_ and she - pregnant and a bit more mature or not - is still Karma and somethings? They just never change.

"Fuck," Karma mutters. "I _knew_ it. She thinks I'm gonna mess this all up, doesn't she? She thinks I'm gonna ruin everything. They _all_ do."

And by 'they', Karma clearly means Lauren. And Reagan. And Amy (probably.) And Farrah (definitely.) And maybe her own mother and certainly Zen (cause he's a _dick_ ) and damn near anyone and everyone else who has ever known her or ever heard the word 'Karmy'.

She _hadn't_ been worried about it, not really. Maybe just a little. Once in a while. Like, you know, every other day or so. If by every other you mean _every_ (without the other) and Karma knows she could - and probably _should_ \- just chalk it up to the hormones and the havock they can wreak. Hormones plus anxiety plus being _here_ (with memories of _him_ around every corner) plus _wedding_ ( _Amy's_ wedding) can _only_ equal a bit of a brain fritz. A moment or two of doubt, a tiny touch of worry, a small - or _not so_ small - dose of paranoia.

Shane sees all that play out on her face and realizes maybe he _shouldn't_ … "Karma -"

"Don't 'Karma' me," she snaps. "I can see it. I can see it in their _eyes_. They think I'm gonna do something to mess it up. They think I'm gonna ruin it. _On purpose_."

She spins around, facing Shane and stares him down, challenging him to tell her she's wrong.

He _could_. But… in for a penny, in for just a little more fun.

"They don't think that," he says. "OK… maybe they don't _all_ think that… I mean… no one _really_ thinks that…"

He watches as Karma's eyes open and then narrow and then open wide again, as her expression yo-yos all around and he knows.

He's so going to hell for this.

"No one really thinks you will," he says, "but Lauren's got a plan. Just in case. She won't tell me what it is, but she's got it in one of those folders she's always carrying around."

The color rises in Karma's cheeks as she turns and looks across the restaurant, at the table Glenn - and now Lauren - are standing in front of, the one covered with Lauren's folders of many colors, her collection of every single wedding related detail.

"She's calling it 'Plan K'," Shane says and he's _so_ proud of himself for not cracking right there.

Karma's hands clench at her side and she cocks her head, eyes roving over the pile of folders and Shane scoots up behind her again, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's just the three of them," he says. "Her and Farrah and Reagan, they're the only ones who know what it is, but she's got it ready to roll the second the minister asks if anyone objects."

_If anyone here knows any reason Amy and Reagan should not be joined together, speak now or forever hold your peace and shut the fuck up, Karma._

Her face crumples and Shane almost feels bad but it's been weeks of her weird ass cravings and her puking and her obsession with listing a million and one baby names and they don't even know the gender yet and _fuck…_

He _needs_ a laugh.

"I don't know all the details, obviously," he says, swooping in for the big finish. "But I did hear her and Reagan talking about Glenn and a balcony and something about a sniper rifle…"

He watches as Karma's expression rolls through every emotion he can think of (and a few _new_ ones) before he can't keep a straight face anymore and she finally figures it out. And then… _oh then_ … her face finally settles into the expression he knows he's gonna be seeing in about six months - right alongside her death grip on his hand and a vow to kill him in his sleep for doing this to her - the one he's seen so many mornings of late, the one he's come to call _Death, the Expectant Mother_.

"You're a fucker," she says, though there's just a hint - a _tiny tiny_ one - of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "An absolute _fucker_."

Shane laughs and nods. "And that's why you love me."

"I don't," she says, shaking her head emphatically. "I _don't_ love you. Not even a little. I don't even _like_ you."

He smiles that Shane smile - the one she's seen every morning for weeks as he holds her hair back and offers her water and lists off names - and pulls her close. "Your words say you don't," he says. "But that bun in your oven says you _so_ do."

* * *

"Glenn…"

That's as far as she gets. Lauren - who is _never_ at a loss for words - doesn't know what to say.

And that's not _entirely_ true. She knows _what_ to say, she knows what he _wants_ her to say and, if she's being honest (at least with herself) she _wants_ the same thing. But _want_ is a big step - a giant fucking _leap_ \- from _able_.

She thought he understood that. Fuck _that_ … she _knows_ he _does_.

But understanding only goes so far and Lauren's pretty sure Glenn's gone just about as far as he can.

"Glenn…" she says ( _again_ ), trying to get his attention and _that's_ new cause getting _his_ attention has never been a problem for her, not since the day they met, even when she was with Theo and they were happy (or she was), Glenn was always… _there_.

Now? Maybe not so much.

"Don't worry," he says without turning around or even looking in her direction. "I'm just here to grab the seating chart for tomorrow. Rea asked me to run it over to the hotel before the rehearsal."

He shuffles through the folders and finds what he's looking for without much trouble. He's seen these folders almost as often as she has. Spread out all over his desk or his bed or his living room floor, sometimes arranged so neatly and meticulously and sometimes shuffled into a mess underneath them, papers strewn about as they've…

Yeah.

He's not thinking about _that_.

Which, also, isn't _entirely_ true. Or even a _little_ true.

He's _always_ thinking about that. And even that isn't _exactly_ true,

He's _always_ thinking about _her_.

"Glenn…"

He sighs and shakes his head and, really, he's not surprised that _that's_ all she's got. His name, over and over and over, kind of like most nights. And like _most nights_ , there's nothing more, nothing _real_.

"It's fine," he says, waving a hand and cutting her off and that's when Lauren _knows_ he's pissed, cause no one who _isn't_ looking for a fight would be stupid enough to do _that_. "I've got what I came for," he says ( _lies_ ), "so I'll be on my way and you won't have to look at me or my… what did you call it? Presumptuous little fuck of a face?"

Lauren closes her eyes and counts to ten, trying to squash her normal instinct - to snap his head off (or to push him down onto the table and snap something _else_ off) - cause, really, she knows she's got no right. For once in her life, Lauren's all too aware that this?

It's all her fault.

She says nothing and Glenn _can't_ say he's surprised. He grabs the seating chart from the folder and squeezes past her, fully intent on making it to the door in record time and getting as far from here - from _her_ \- as he can, at least for a few hours.

"I'm sorry."

The words tumble from her lips before she can stop them and, really, she doesn't _want_ to, even if she swore - she fucking _swore_ \- she would never say those words again. Even if she vowed to herself, and to anyone who would listen (so, Reagan and Amy), that she would never look to a _man_ for forgiveness again.

Because, you know, it worked so well the _first_ time.

Glenn stops short but doesn't turn around and Lauren thinks that's something, maybe just a tiny thing, but she'll take what she can get and _God,_ that makes her feel desperate and clingy and dependent and every single thing she never wanted this to be and she doesn't know - not even a little - why she keeps _thinking_ things like that but can't actually _say_ them to _him_.

Oh. Wait.

That's right. Cause the last time she did that, she was pouring her heart out through a locked bedroom door that, as it turns out, was locked for a good fucking _reason_.

"You're sorry?" Glenn asks. "For what? For saying it? Or for meaning it?"

Lauren shrugs which, of course, he can't _see_. "Both?" she says, knowing how bad that sounds but at least she's trying for honest and that's gotta count for something, right?

Glenn leans against the counter but still keeps his back to her. "So," he says. "I'm presumptuous because I thought that, maybe, on our sisters big day you'd, maybe, actually want to spend time with me?" He turns slightly, but still doesn't _look_ , cause _seeing_ her has always been his weakness. "Or is it because I actually thought I'd become something more than just a booty call?"

"Both?" Lauren says - _again_ \- before she can stop herself ( _again_ ) and she knows immediately that _that_ is the wrong answer and, even worse, she doesn't even _mean_ it.

He's never been a booty call. Never _just_ that. She thought he knew that.

It might have helped, she guesses ( _now_ ), if she'd _told_ him that.

"I'll see you at the rehearsal," he says and Lauren knows she has to stop him and not _just_ because Glenn is fuck all at hiding his feelings and the last thing she needs is a pissed off Best Man ruining the night.

"I do," she says, snapping the words off like a whip and he stops - again - but she knows it might have been enough to stop him, but it's not enough to keep him there.

To _keep_ him and yes, she _wants_ to, she _always_ has.

Maybe she should have told him _that_ too.

"I do want to spend time with you," she says. "There. At the wedding. And at the reception. And -"

"So help me, Cooper, if you say 'the night after'..."

"What?" Lauren snaps and, yes, she knows she probably _shouldn't_ , but she's still _her_. "I'm not allowed to want you anymore? I say one stupid thing," she ignores the way his eyebrows arch at 'one' (and can the whole family do _that_?) and rolls on. "And now I'm not allowed to think you're the sexiest thing on two legs or dream about the various and sundry things I'd like you to do to me in the hot tub in my hotel suite?"

She sees him tense at _that_ and, at least, she knows she can still make him feel _something_.

"You're allowed," Glenn mutters. "But if that's all you think about… if that's _all_ you want…"

He squeezes the paper in his hand, crinkling and crumpling painstaking hours of Lauren's life and she doesn't even flinch and that should tell him _something_.

"You know I'd do it," he says. "You _know_ I'd _fuck_ you and I'd _kiss_ you and I'd do things to you that I'm not entirely sure are legal in this state." He looks at her then, finally. "And I'd do it all for as long as you'd have me."

"I kno -"

He steps closer and the words die on her lips. "But only _if_ you'd have me," he says. "But you won't. You just want me when no one is around and when no one can see and when no one has to know that the mighty Lauren Cooper, who swore off love when some cheating asshole broke her heart, might have fall -"

"I was _married_ to that cheating asshole," Lauren says and, for maybe the first time _ever_ , that word doesn't bring a tear to her eye. "And I _saw_ it, I _saw_ them together in _our_ bed and I'm sorry if that maybe makes me a little -"

"It doesn't matter what it makes _you_ ," Glenn says. "It matters what you think it makes _me_. And no matter what you _think_ , Lauren? I'm not _him_. I'm not Theo. And I can't take one more day of you treating me like I am."

"I don't -"

"You _do_ ," he says. His hands twitch at his sides, the way they always do when they're this close and he _can't_ touch her. "When we're alone? No. But the rest of the time? When we're with Amy and Rea or Karma or Shane? You treat me like I'm the guy who wrecked your perfect little life and _I'm_ the guy you can't trust."

Lauren wants to argue cause _Lauren_. But she knows she can't - again - cause she knows he's right. She's always known it, she just never thought…

She thought what they had, even if it was only in private, would be enough.

Glenn sees her glance over his shoulder and he remembers that Karma and Shane are still setting up across the room and he's suddenly very conscious of how close they are and how much they can see and hear.

"I'm sorry…"

He catches himself halfway through apologizing for almost… _outing_ her… for almost outing them and he stops and shakes his head. He's been doing it for so long now, apologizing for how he feels… he doesn't know how to _stop_.

Glenn takes a half a step toward her and Lauren tenses - just like Karma always sees - but now _he_ sees it too and he thinks… well… he doesn't see desire or need. He just sees fear.

"I'll see you tonight," he says, turning on his heel and leaving as quickly as he came and Lauren just stands there, staring at her folders and wondering what the hell she's supposed to do.

Except she knows _what_. She just doesn't… she's not sure she _can_ but she _is_ sure she's about out of time to figure it out.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy tries to fix her mistake and we find out why Liam and Reagan's father are no longer with us. Warning: Two character deaths, though we already know who they are, but if that sort of thing might bother you... (and throw a friend a bone and review!) (unless you hate it!) :)

Reagan's leaning against the porch railing just outside the front door when Amy finds her.

She doesn't seem to be doing much of anything at all - leaning and staring and tap tap tapping an unlit cigarette against the railing - but Amy knows better. She knows the lean is the only way Reagan can keep herself up and she knows the cigarette isn't a smoke, it's a _crutch_ , something to hold onto, to fidget with, to keep her brain occupied just enough that she doesn't _think_.

At least not too much, though Amy's pretty sure her fiancee has already thought way too much for the both of them.

There's not much for her to look at. The lot's almost empty, the _Closed for Family FUNction!_ sign Jana hung on the door has chased off most of the random customers and all the regulars already knew. They've sent their congrats and their best wishes and even a few gifts and so there's not all that much for Reagan to be looking at. Shane's tiny compact in the corner spot near the back, Lauren's totally not overcompensating SUV next to it, Glenn's Harley haphazardly slanted through two spots next to that.

Their car isn't there. It never is even though there's a spot for it, right in the front, the very first one just past the porch, with a tiny white metal sign mounted on a thin blue pole with simple black block letters.

_Reserved for Owner_

That's Reagan - that's _them_ , unofficially, and in less than a day it _will_ be official, though Amy knows it's already as real as it gets - and that's _her_ spot, the one Jana _insisted_ they make, the one she _refused_ to give to anyone else.

She hammered the sign into the ground herself.

Jana knew, maybe before any of them, what had to be done. She understood and she took care of it so they wouldn't have to and though there are many many _many_ things Amy's grateful to the doughnut woman for, that sign…

How do you say thank you for something like _that_?

They don't park there - _no one_ does and Amy knows _that_ was Jana's plan - not even when it's busy, not even on those mornings when the place is packed and Jana's racing to fill orders and the college kids are staggering in hoping to grease away a hangover or the third shifters are stopping for q doughnut burger or two on their way home or on Open Mic Tuesdays or any time Karma's performing.

It could be - and often is - the only open spot in the lot and there it sits, empty and unfilled, the way it's been since the day they paved the lot, since the cold Wednesday afternoon when Reagan and Lucy sat on the porch and watched as they poured the tar, as they rolled it out hot and sticky and stinky and let it slowly ooze its way across the grass, or what was left of it. In the end, the blacktop and the white lines and that tiny little sign covered it all. It buried it and hid it and smoothed it over and no one could see it anymore.

Except maybe Lucy, though Amy's never heard her talk about it and since she moved to Gainesville, she thinks her sister probably hasn't thought of it much, if at all.

Or, you know, maybe every single night before she falls asleep and she has to call Karma and talk about everything and nothing (which, not surprisingly, is how Lucy became the first to know about the you-know-what) until she's calm enough to close her eyes and fall into a fitful and, with any luck, dreamless sleep.

So except _maybe_ Lucy and _definitely_ Amy and _without a doubt_ Reagan. Amy knows - even if Reagan's never once said it, even if she's never even come close to bringing it up - that it doesn't matter what they soaked it in or how they coated it or what they poured over it and buried it beneath. Reagan still sees it, she can't _unsee_ it.

That's where her father died.

* * *

If she was smart, Amy knows she'd jump straight to the apology.

Of course, if she was _smart_ , she wouldn't be in this mess to begin with and if she was _smart_ , she'd know the apology won't mean much right now and if she was _smart_ , she'd skip the whole 'I'm _so_ sorry' _bullshit_ (cause it is bullshit, even if she means _every fucking word_ ) and go straight to the groveling and the begging and the promises of various and myriad ways she'll make it up to Reagan on the honeymoon.

Usually, she would.

But somehow… well… somehow making it seem like you actually _forgot_ \- even if you never ever could - that your fiancee's father was... _gone_...

Yeah. That's not _usually_.

She watches from the door as Reagan leans just a little more, lets her weight rest against the railing, letting it hold her up as she lets out a long breath, slow and ragged, and Amy can tell she's been crying.

Or, more likely, _not_. The tears are _there_ \- Amy's sure - they're pricking at Reagan's eyes and she's just barely holding them back but she _is_ cause that's what she _does_ , that's what she does _here_ , like somehow _he's_ still here, watching her, whispering in her ear that she's out and she's proud and she's a motherfucking _queen_ and she'll be fucking damned if she's gonna let him see her crack.

Usually, Amy would admire that, she'd be proud of the strength and the heart and the stubborn 'fuck you' of it all. It's one of the things she loves about Reagan and it's one of the things she hopes her fiancee - her _wife_ \- will someday pass down to their kids.

Usually.

But yeah… this… you know.

Reagan's been teetering on the edge for days, maybe longer, and now that she's realized it, Amy can't believe she didn't _see_ it, she can't believe she let herself get so caught up in… well… _herself_ , that she missed the fucking neon blinking glowing lighting up the dark signs all along the way.

And she can't believe she doesn't know how to fix it.

That's what they do, after all, they _fix_ each other. They make the broken parts not so broken, they make the cracked and bent and dented pieces work anyway, they fill in the gaps and they make each other whole and they make each other _work_. They always have.

Except… Amy doesn't know how to make _this_ work cause she doesn't have a cure, she doesn't have a magic spell that will make it all better, there's no medicine for this sickness and there's no bandage thick enough to cover a wound that deep.

She's got nothing.

Except herself.

And maybe, Amy thinks ( _hopes_ ), that might just be enough.

* * *

"I thought you quit," Amy says, stepping out onto the porch and nodding at the unlit cigarette in Reagan's hand, though the other woman doesn't so much as turn to look at her.

Amy wants to say 'you promised', she wants to remind Reagan of that particular _vow_ she already made, but Amy's smart enough (the last hour or so notwithstanding) not to call Reagan on oweing her anything right now.

"Is it lit?" Reagan asks. There's no fire… bad choice of words… there's no _anger_ or _spirit_ or much of _anything_ behind her voice and that breaks Amy's heart. "Am I actually smoking it? Or, am I just standing here cause it's something to do and, unlike another beer, this _something_ won't get me hammered _before_ the rehearsal."

If she took more than five seconds to think about it, Amy probably wouldn't do… well… yeah, she'd still do what she does next cause it's what she _does_ and she hopes _that's_ what Reagan needs.

Her.

She slips up next to Reagan, leaning her back against the railing and plucks the cigarette from the other woman's fingers, flicking it into the trash can under the front window.

"Are you _kidding_ me, right now?" Reagan asks and this time, there's a little… _something_ … behind her words and behind her eyes and Amy's almost grateful.

She'd be _more_ grateful if that _something_ was aimed somewhere else but, at the moment, she'll take what she can get.

"Nope," she says, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole thing. "Not kidding. Not even a little." She stares Reagan down and even now - even after _ten fucking years_ \- that's no small feat. "You know what those things will do to you."

Reagan breaks eye contact first and usually - fuck _usually_ \- Amy would count that as something of a win. "Yeah, I know," she says. "They'll kill you. Like cancer or a heart attack or…" She drums her fingers - empty now - on the railing. "Or a fire."

_Fuck_.

Amy _so_ should have seen _that_ coming.

"That's not what I meant -"

"I _know_ what you meant," Reagan says. "I remember the list. They'll make my lungs black and ruin my teeth and they'll fuck up my breathing and they'll make me smell like shit no matter how many showers I take and no one... " She shakes her head and her fingers drum faster on the railing. "And _no one_ wants to _fuck_ a cigarette and are we really having _this_ conversation _right now_?"

Amy ignores the question, focusing instead on the way Reagan's fingers are rapping against the wood, faster and faster, and the way those tears - the ones she _knew_ were there - are drying in her eyes and the way they're inching ever closer to the thing neither of them wants to say.

"That wasn't the whole list," she says and Reagan's fingers are doing fucking lightspeed Morse Code on the railing. 'You forgot one. Smoking those things pisses off your wife to be something fierce."

Reagan snorts and Amy holds back a smile at the crack in the armor. "You sure I _forgot_?"

"No," Amy says and Reagan's head snaps around to look at her and it's all Amy can do to not do a victory jig that she actually surprised her. "I don't think you _forgot_. I think that's _why_ you were doing it. Or thinking about doing it. Or trying to make _me_ think that _you_ were thinking about doing it or -"

Reagan snorts - again - and shakes her head, looking away again, but this time it's just _out_ , at the lot, at the sky, at the world in general and not _there_ and _that's_ a step.

A small one, but still…

"So, what?" Reagan asks. "Now I'm doing things just for _you_? Just to piss you off?" She pushes off the railing and takes a few steps down the porch, stopping by the front window with _Planter's_ and _Under New Management_ stenciled on the glass, though it's been years and they're hardly new. "Little egotistical, don't you think?"

Amy shakes her head but otherwise doesn't move. "Not really," she says. "Not when you're this mad at me, no. Not when it's either do anything you can, any little thing you can think of to piss me off or you know, slap me around a little, get a little _rough_ , and since I'm not tied to the bed at the moment…"

There's a second - a tiny tiny _tiny_ one (and yes, Amy firmly believes that there are some seconds that are tinier than the others and _this_ is one of them) - when Reagan breaks, when the scowl fades and the anger hisses out of her like air rushing through a ripped balloon, when she _forgets_ for just a moment and she smirks at the thought and yeah, the mask is back a second later (a tiny tiny one) and yeah, nothing's fixed, yet.

But... _yet_.

"I'm not mad," Reagan says and Amy half expects her to say she's 'just disappointed' but it doesn't come and Reagan takes a few more steps, settling down on the wooden swing at the end of the porch.

It's _that_ swing - the _Reamy is a thing_ swing - imported from the Harvey back yard and Amy feels the same rush she does every time she sees it, every time she sees Reagan on it, and it's like she's right back there again and they're snapping that picture and for the first time in forever she feels like there's a chance she might be happy after all.

She's held onto that feeling every day for the last ten years and it's gotten her through things she never would have thought she could survive. And _she'll_ be damned if she's gonna give up on that now.

"I'm an idiot," she says and she's not the least bit surprised when Reagan doesn't say a thing to contradict her. "I'm the Idiot Queen, the Idiot General. If there was an election for President of the Idiots, I'd be running unopposed."

Amy crosses the porch and kneels in front of Reagan - an odd reversal of their proposal - and covers the other woman's hand with her own, relieved (just a little) when Reagan doesn't pull away.

"I'm sitting there, hemming and hawing and all in a fucking panic, debating which of my fathers I should have walk me down the aisle." she says. "Like it's the worst thing ever. Hashtag Poor Amy."

Reagan stares at their hands and she wants nothing more (except maybe to remind Amy that no one uses hashtags anymore) than to flip hers over and lace their fingers together, like always. But that's their 'argument's over' move.

And this one's not.

"I'm sorry, baby," Amy says, hoping that _now_ it isn't so much bullshit. "I should have -"

"Yes," Reagan says, cutting her off. " _You_ should have." She pulls her hand free and swings her legs up onto the swing, _away_ from Amy. "I know it's been… years… and I don't expect the world to stop turning or for everyone I know to walk on eggshells around me. I don't need everyone to censor everything they say and to act like their fathers don't exist and never say the word 'fire' in front of me."

"But I'm not everyone," Amy says.

"No," Reagan agrees. " _You're_ not." The tears are back but that's OK because this time she's letting them fall. " _You_ should know," Reagan says. " _You_ should remember."

Amy nods silently even if she knows different, even if she knows Reagan's not _exactly_ right.

She didn't _forget_. Like she ever could.

* * *

There are things Amy remembers.

The first time she kissed Reagan, in their park. She remembers the way the older girl tasted on her lips, the way it was so different from Karma, the way she never wanted to taste anyone or anything else ever again.

The moment Reagan told her she loved her. Amy can even remember the little gasp Shane made when he heard it and the way she wanted to turn to him and just squeal 'I know!'

She remembers the moment when she told Karma she was never going to apologize for being in love and the moment after Jack and Lucy when she was so mad and _Karma_ told _her_ she was never going to apologize for trying to protect her cause 'that's what best friends do and maybe _I'm_ not _yours_ anymore but _you_ will always be _mine_ ' and even Reagan clapped.

There's the moment she graduated high school and Reagan cheered so loud they almost had to stop the ceremony and the moment Reagan landed her record deal and Amy ran through the house crying and jumping and yelling 'woot!' at the top of her lungs until Farrah made her stop. And there was the moment they walked into their first apartment and the moment - _moments_ \- when they christened every single room and the nights they lay awake in their too small bed and talked about the future and imagined their kids and Karma's kids and Shane's kids (who were never the _same_ kids) playing together and there was the moment and the other moment and that other one too.

She remembers them all and she couldn't forget them if she tried.

And she'll never remember a single one of them like she remembers _that_ one.

There's that spot, the one Reagan was staring at, the one covered by blacktop and marked by a sign.

_Reserved for Owner_

Amy remembers that spot, remembers it so well that - unlike Reagan - she _never_ looks at it, she never stares it down, she walks through that parking lot every day, head up, eyes forward, never once drifting, never once wandering, never once…

It's not that she _can't_ , it's that she _won't_. Because if she does, if she looks, she'll do more than remember, she'll _relive_. She'll be right back _there_ , pulling up in front and jumping from the car, just a second behind the fireman and the EMTs. She'll be right _there_ , diving into the grass, already black with soot and smoke, and cradling her sister - and that might have been the first time she _really_ thought of Lucy like that - in her arms.

If she looks, she'll be right _there_ , hearing them tell her to step back, pulling Lucy with her, feeling her sister shake in her arms, quiver and quaking and trying to pull loose, trying to run to Liam…

To his _body_.

One look and she'll be right there, looking up from the ground, Lucy clawing at her, soaking her shirt with tears, but all Amy saw - all she'd _see_ \- is Reagan, but it isn't _her_ Reagan, it isn't that girl from the Hester hallway, it isn't the girl from the Harvey swing, it's not _her_.

It's not her Reagan she sees.

It's Martin's.

It's the little girl that loved her father and stayed with him and let him love her back. The little girl that came out of the closet over breakfast and called her daddy whenever things got rough. The girl who cursed her mother for her stupidity and would never believe there was a better man in the world than her father and she just might have been right.

It's that little girl Amy sees - _would_ see - the one who had to watch them pushing and pushing and _pushing_ on her father's chest, who had to watch as they shook their heads and those pushes stopped, who had to…

Who had to go on. Day after day and night after night, month and year and life after life.

Amy _won't_ look because if she does, she'll be there all over again and _she's_ not that strong and _she'll_ crack and that's not _for her_. That's for Reagan. And maybe Reagan never does and maybe she holds it in and maybe she'll never cry and scream and wail and lose her _fucking shit_ over it _ever._

But if she does?

Amy knows. _She_ won't look because if she does, she'll be _there_ and that's not where she's _supposed_ to be. She's meant to be where she is. Wherever Reagan is.

Or, at least, never far.

* * *

"I do," Amy says softly. "I _do_ remember."

Reagan shifts on the swing, turning so she can look at Amy. "I know," she says, the bite gone (mostly) from her voice. "I didn't mean… it's just…" She rests her elbows on her knees and her chin on her chest. "Every day we get closer, one more step, and soon we're gonna be married and there's nothing in this world - _nothing_ \- that will make me as happy as being your wife."

There's a 'but' and Amy knows there's a 'but' _but_ she stays quiet, letting Reagan get to it in her own time.

"But he's not here," Reagan says and _there's_ the but and it's big one as buts go. "He's not here and I'm going to be standing up there, in front of all those people." She shakes her head and swipes a quick finger at her eyes. "And they're all _your_ people, Amy. _Your_ fathers, _your_ mother, _your_ cousins and aunts and uncles. Even the Ashcrofts and the Harveys…"

"They all love you," Amy says and yes, she knows _that's_ not the point but she doesn't know what else to say. "They love you like you're one of their own. You know that."

Reagan nods. "I do," she says. "And _I_ love _them_ , except maybe your dad and Shane's sister cause… really…" she shakes her head and they both laugh and Amy's heart swells a little, fit to fucking burst at the way Reagan can make any moment happy and sad and somehow _perfect_ without trying. "But they're not _mine._ My people… my father's in an urn on Glenn's bookshelf and my mother's in Cabo and the rest…"

The tears come then, for _real_ , and Amy pulls Reagan's legs up and slips onto the swing, dropping them back down as she pulls her fiancee to her, cradling Reagan in her lap. She lets her cry, lets it all break loose as she holds her, waiting for the shaking and the sobbing to stop before she speaks again.

"The rest are stupid," Amy says and she hears (and feels) Reagan snort against her neck. "And so am I. For being so dumb and insensitive and never even thinking…"

Reagan fidgets, burrowing closer. "It's OK," she says. "I know you didn't mean...anything. It's just… Glenn won't do it, he says it's too much, like he'd be trying to replace Dad and I get that, but…" She shakes her head again. "My grandfather is literally ninety-two years old and he'd be about ninety-five by the time we reached the end of the aisle and there's just…"

No one.

Except...

"Would it make you feel any better," Amy says, "if I said I might have a solution for _both_ of us?"

Reagan tips her head back so she can look Amy in the eye. "I swear to _God_ , Shrimps, if you're about to offer me a dad…"

Amy'd be lying if she said she hadn't thought about _that_ , but in the end she thinks she might have come up with something a little better.

She reaches over and wipes a tear from Reagan's cheek and Reagan turns into the contact, letting Amy cup her cheek and gripping her hand tightly in her own. "No dad," Amy says, "but I _am_ going to offer you something. I'm going to offer you a 'me'."

Reagan arches a brow and Amy can't help but wonder how that's still _so_ damn hot after all these years. "I'm pretty sure I already got a 'you'," she says. "That's what the ring's for, right?"

"Yes," Amy says. "You've _got_ me. But I didn't mean like _that_."

"You have my attention," Reagan says, not noticing the way _that_ phrase makes Amy's eyes go wide.

"I was just thinking, " Amy says. "We're having our rehearsal in a doughnut shop. And we've been together ten years already. _And_ we're both wearing white despite the fact that I'm pretty sure at least _six_ of the things I did to you last night makes that _completely_ inappropriate _and_ we're both women and yes, that's legal and all but this is still _Texas_ and - "

"There a point in there somewhere, Shrimps?"

"The point is," Amy says, sticking out her tongue. "We're already doing things just about as unconventionally as Lauren will let us." Reagan laughs and nods. "So what's one more?"

Reagan just stares at her in confusion, confusion that only grows when Amy slips off the swing and drops to a knee on the porch.

Amy clears her throat and goes as formal as she possibly can. "Reagan Marie Solis, would you do me the honor of escorting me down the aisle?"

She looks so goofy and sweet and ridiculous and just so… _Amy_ … and Reagan can't help but smile, even if she thinks it's the weirdest idea ever.

(Not bad.) (Just _weird_.) (So, you know, kinda perfect.)

"You want to walk each other down the aisle?" she asks, slowly warming to the idea.

Amy nods. "It makes sense."

"Sense?"

Amy nods again, emphatically. "Ten years ago, in the hallways of Hester, you gave me your heart," she says. "And then that same day, in your truck, in the parking lot of some company that neither of us remembers the name of, that's probably long since gone out of business, I gave you my mine." she says.

Reagan remembers. She remembers every day.

"It only makes sense," Amy says, "that on our wedding day, that _I_ get to be the one to give you me. Again."

Reagan doesn't say anything for a moment and Amy thinks maybe she doesn't like it or maybe she thinks it's stupid or maybe she's reconsidering the whole fucking thing and then…

And then Reagan reaches into her pocket and pulls out the box of cigarettes, the last one she's been hoarding, the one with only one cig missing. She holds it in her hand, right in front of Amy for just a moment, before reaching over her and tossing them in that same trash can just under the front window.

"Quitting again?" Amy asks, not quite sure if that's a yes or not.

"Just for you," Reagan whispers, leaning down to press one soft kiss to Amy's lips. "Can't go wrecking my lungs before our big walk, right?"

Amy grins and pulls Reagan down off the swing and into her lap and kisses her again. And again. And one more and one more and and and...

" _And_ I hated them, anyway," Reagan says. "But don't worry," she says, cupping Amy's face between her hands as she kisses her one more time and marvels at how _that_ just never gets old. "I've got a whole lifetime to find other ways to piss you off."


	39. Chapter 39

She hates him.

Reagan can feel it bubbling up inside her, ready to burst, like the champagne bottles Lauren's got set aside for tomorrow. It always happens like this, every time she sees him. It rises in her like the tide - sudden and swift and threatening to choke her - until she can shove it back down, until she can remember why she doesn't act on it, why she swallows it all and puts it away, at least until the next time.

For Amy.

She hears his car pulling into the lot - the same beat to shit, should have been put out of its misery long ago Honda he rolled back into town in - and it's like a trigger being pulled, except the bullet never fires, it stalls in the chamber, shaking and vibrating with all that kinetic energy, a gunpowder fire burning inside and her fingers shake against the arm of the swing.

There's another urge rumbling around inside her. The need for another beer or that pack of cigarettes she tossed in the trash. For something, for _anything_ , anything that will distract, anything that will take the edge off before that edge gets too sharp and she takes one off _him_.

Reagan watches as he pulls into the lot, right on fucking time - he's _never_ late, not even a fucking _second_ \- there to pick up Amy and she knows she's got no one to blame for this but herself. She was the one who suggested it.

Go with him, she said. Tag along when he goes to the airport to pick up Lucy, she said. It'll be good, she said, Lucy will love to see you and it'll get you out of Lauren's hair and out of the stress and you'll have a little… family… time.

You should go, she said. You really should.

Not the first time she's said those words.

She watches as he pulls in and cuts the engine and climbs out of the door, his eyes catching hers and she swears she can see him pale - just a little - and yeah, she takes a tiny (not _so_ tiny) bit of satisfaction at that, at him wanting to be alone with her even less than she wants it. But then his color is back and he's smiling and waving - cause that's what _they_ do - except right then Reagan doesn't want to, she doesn't want to smile and she doesn't want to wave and all she wants to do is to hop off that swing and stride down those steps and punch him in his fucking face.

Wouldn't be the first time.

* * *

_**Ten Years Ago** _

His palms are sweating and his heart is racing and fuck all, it's been… well… _forever_ since Jack's felt like this.

He thought nothing could be worse than the withdrawals, that he'd never feel worse than during the detox, when all the shit he'd spent years pumping into his system slowly leached its way out, his body clawing and scratching and fighting not to let it go. There were nights he thought he'd die and even more of them when he _wished_ he would.

And somehow, _this_ is worse. _This_ is like all those nights of detox mixed with a 100-proof cocktail of the nerves (and expectations) of a teenage boy on his first date (her name was Missy and she was gorgeous and funny and never without a beer or a hit of something handy, which explains _a lot_ ) and the terror of proposing to Farrah (which was mostly - _all_ \- unbridled fear of Farrah's _mother_ ) and the pain of walking away from Amy.

Not even withdrawal hurt like _that_.

He stares at the glass of club soda in front of him and there's a part of him - one that will _always_ be there and he's learned to live with that - that wishes it was something stronger. It doesn't have to be a lot, that part whispers. Just a _splash_ , a finger or two, a shot at most. Just a little something.

Just enough.

Jack's learned to live with that part of him by remembering. Remembering how good those nerves felt before he went out with Missy. How alive that fear of Nana made him. How much he never again wants to hurt like he did when he left Amy.

Remembering that it might be just a little something to take the edge off, but if he starts down that path?

It will _never_ be enough.

He sees Reagan come through the coffee shop door - right on time and that makes him smile - and he stands, one hand still clutching the glass and the other waving her over. His stomach rolls and he has to take a few deep breaths. He hasn't been this nervous since the first day with Lucy, after Child Services finally approved and let him take her home, when she first walked into his house - her _new_ house - and he turned to her, expecting… well…

He hadn't known what to expect, not really. She'd just lost her mother and gained a father she only barely knew, but he thought, maybe, she'd be at least a little… _not_ happy, but hopeful, maybe?

She was eleven (and a _half_ ) and Jack didn't think eleven year olds even _knew_ those kinds of words and he certainly didn't think they knew how to throw a punch but _Lucy_ did know those words (and a few more, all along the lines of 'now you show up' and 'where were you' and 'you think _this_ makes up for _shit_?') and maybe she didn't really know _how_ to punch, but even a badly thrown punch can bust a nose.

Jack watches Reagan cross the shop with a nervous, but _hopeful_ smile on his face, and at least this time he figures he doesn't have to worry about getting punched. "Miss Solis," he says, extending a hand. "I'm so glad you could -"

The rest is lost - and lost _quickly_ \- in a blur of a right hand slamming into him and a hazy veil of red and blue and white spots that invade his vision as Jack staggers back against the wall, grateful at least that he saw the punch coming at the last second and was able to turn the other cheek - in a manner of speaking - and Reagan didn't break his nose.

Again.

Jack sags against the bench for the booth and runs his tongue along his teeth and the inside of his lip, tasting the faint cooper flavor of blood. He hears a commotion from behind the counter as Marti, his head barista comes barreling out and he holds up a hand, waving her off.

"It's fine," he says, hoping the words come out a little less 'my tongue is swelling up cause I just got punched by a teenager' than they sound to him. He slumps down into the booth and looks up at Reagan, blinking his eyes as he tries to refocus. "I had that coming."

She stands there, staring down at him with both fists clenched and Jack's pretty sure she's not just ready for round two, she's _hoping_ for it. He reaches up and runs a hand along his jaw - at least that one comes up free of blood - and waves the other hand at the empty booth across from him.

"Unless you're planning to ground and pound me into disappearing again," he says, "we should probably talk."

That it takes Reagan a good minute and a half to think it over - and that even when she sits her fists are still clenched and on top of the table and he's still well within range - doesn't escape Jack's notice.

"I'm guessing you know who I am?" He considers making a crack about her hitting all her potential clients but thinks better of it.

He's a drunk and a shit father, but Jack's not stupid.

Reagan doesn't say anything for a long moment and Jack's starting to wonder if she's just gonna hit him again when she reaches across the table and just _takes_ his glass, sliding it across and in front of her before taking a whiff - her eyes never leaving him though he kinda wishes they would - and then sliding it back.

"Club soda," he says, resisting the urge to point out that she could have just _asked_. "I haven't had a drink in almost five years."

"Yay for you," Reagan says, fists clenched again.

Jack reaches out and wraps his hands around the glass, feeling the cool weight of it against his palms. His heart slows and steadies in his chest and he wonders if that will ever stop, if a glass in his hand will ever _not_ be a good thing. "It's the feel of it," he says, explaining even though she didn't ask. "I don't need the…" He pauses, not wanting to start off with a lie ( _another_ one.) "I _make do_ without the actual drink, but the glass or the bottle in my hand… it helps, you know?"

Reagan stares at him across the table and she doesn't answer cause no, she _doesn't_ know and _he_ knows that. He glances down at the glass in his hands and then at the table and then back up at Marti - still watching them - and then back at the glass and the whole time _she_ just keeps staring at _him_ and it's like asking Nana for Farrah's hand only _worse_ and Jack didn't think there was _worse_ than _Nana_.

"You punch all your girlfriend's fathers?"

It's about… no… not _about_ … it _is_ the dumbest thing he could possibly say and he knows it and that's the thing about Jack.

He never needed the booze to be a fuck up. It just sped up the process.

Reagan's fists tighten at the word - at 'father' - but she doesn't come across the booth so, hey, there's _that_. "The first time Amy met my father she kicked him in the nuts and maced him in the face," she says. "You're getting off easy."

Somehow Jack doesn't think either of them really believe that.

He's got her talking now and he hopes that's a good thing and figures it's at least better than the alternative. "Did Karma tell you?" he asks. "About me?"

There's a flash behind Reagan's eyes and her fists flex again (and Jack makes note that 'Karma' and 'father' should be avoided.) "No," she says. "I saw you. Outside the shop. With… her… and Liam and… well… I guess that would have been Lucy, right? Your daughter." The word comes out with a snarl and Jack thinks he may need to expand that 'avoid' list. "Your _other_ daughter."

Jack nods. "Yes," he says. "That was her. I didn't think Karma would be coming by just then and I told Lucy I'd meet her outside and…" He rolls the glass between his hands. "I guess I wasn't as careful as I should have been."

"Seems like a pattern with you," Reagan says and it takes Jack a moment to catch on.

"It only happened once," he says. "Lucy's mother and I… Farrah and I were having…" He shakes his head, not quite believing it's come to _this._ He's gone through rehab and detoxing and trying to prove - to a court, at least - that he was a fit father and then spending years to prove that to his _daughter_ but now here he is. Trying to explain and rationalize and tell a fucking nineteen year old about his choices. "I was stupid and I made a mistake and that was only one of many and I can't go back, so I just have to focus on -"

"Save your twelve steps bullshit," Reagan says. "I don't care and I'm _never_ going to care." Jack nods as she unclenches her fists and spreads her fingers on the tabletop. He can see them shaking. "You tried to hire me and you've got Liam showing Lucy around town and you're arranging meetings with… _her_ … so either now you're addicted to living dangerously or…"

"Or I'm planning on staying," Jack finishes for her. "And I'm trying… _poorly_ … to figure out how to tell Amy and how to be part of her life again." He runs his finger along the rim of the glass, trying to think of how to finesse his way into asking, and finally settling on blunt. "Did you tell her?"

"You should go," Reagan says. "You really should. Before you hurt her, before you undo everything she's done to make herself right." She looks up at him and it's the first time (and the last) he's seen anything but anger in her eyes. She's _begging_. "Go," she says. " _Please_."

* * *

There are times - not all that many of them, but _some_ \- when Reagan thinks that _maybe_ she's got _some_ anger issues, that maybe she's not quite as alright with everything that's happened as she always says she is (not that _any_ of them actually believe her) (except maybe Karma, cause… _Karma_.) She thinks that maybe she should have listened to Glenn's advice, that maybe she should have seen someone - counselor, therapist, sensei, _someone_ \- after Martin died. That maybe she sometimes handles her problems with cutting words and punching fists a little more often than she ought to.

And then there's all the _other_ times - like _every_ fucking _one_ \- when she sees Jack or hears his voice or that ridiculous fucking car and all _those_ times? Reagan thinks that maybe she doesn't do it often enough.

"You hate him, don't you?" Amy asks her, at least a handful of times a year, which is probably more often than she should (or should _have_ to.) And every time, Reagan says the same thing.

"I don't hate _him_ ," she says. "I hate what he did and I hate what that did _to you_. But I don't hate _him_."

It's a lie. A small one. (Maybe not _that_ small.) And Reagan knows they shouldn't lie to each other and they shouldn't have secrets, but…

But she _hates_ him.

She's not alone.

"I hate that he's here," she tells Lauren and Karma. And _that_ was true even before he was here and Martin wasn't and _that's_ only made it worse. "I hate every moment of doubt and confusion and pain he's caused Amy since he's been back."

Karma and Lauren always nod in solidarity. They've got their own lists.

"I hate the way he makes Farrah so… _Farrah_ ," Lauren says. "Like she forgets who she is just because he's here and like she can't decide if she wants to hug him or murder him."

Reagan's pretty sure Farrah usually leans toward murder.

"I hate how Amy looks at Lucy," Karma says and the other two look at _her_ , like woah, like wait, like this is about hating _him_ , remember? "The way she'll stop sometimes, and just stare at her, like she's always wondering, always trying to puzzle out what it is about _her_ that was enough and what it was about herself that _wasn't_." She shakes her head and curses Jack under her breath. "He did that," she says. "To the both of them."

Sometimes, Reagan has to admit, even Karma's got a point.

She sits on the swing on the Planter's front porch and watches Jack slip out of his car. She swears he's lost another five pounds. _That's_ his new addiction - the one for this year - exercise and healthy eating. Five or six days a week pulling two-a-days in the gym. A mile or two run every morning, up and down the hill by his house and then up and down again. He's still the art teacher at Hester, only now he's the one who arrives in the morning in his helmet and his bike shorts and a sweat soaked tank top.

The students all laugh. At least the guys do. Reagan suspects a few of the girls (and maybe a guy or two, too) might think differently and she's waited for months for that call to come. For Amy to get the word that her father - despite a five year relationship with Marti, his former employee - has been caught fucking a student and even _Hester_ 's not down with _that_.

It's not that Reagan always thinks badly of him. It's not that she always expects the worst.

Oh. Wait. Yeah, it _is_.

Jack climbs the steps onto the porch, his eyes flicking between her and the front door and back down to the car and she can see it, she can see the urge. That _need_ to turn around and go right back down those steps, to climb back behind the wheel and peel on out, to text Amy from the road.

_Sorry, honey. Couldn't wait. I'll drop Lucy off at Planter's after the airport. Maybe we can take her together when she leaves._

It would be easier. It would be simpler than a car ride with _just_ her, so much simpler than standing here, alone with Reagan. She can see it in Jack's eyes that he wants to, he wants to run. Maybe not as far as he once did, maybe just to the airport, maybe just _away from her_ , but wherever and however far, that urge is always there.

Jack walks over and drops down onto the swing next to her, doing the one thing she hates most, the one thing he's done ever since she asked him to go.

He stays.

Reagan scoots a little closer to her end of the swing, not even trying to not make it obvious, not that Jack would care. "Amy should be out in a minute," she says. "She was just grabbing her stuff and checking on something with Karma."

Jack nods. "She said it was your idea," he says. "For her to come with me to the airport."

_Of course_ Amy said that. It wasn't her idea, not even a little, but she did encourage her to go, told her what a good idea it would be and all that, but Amy's got a habit - a really fucking _annoying_ one - of taking every opportunity to make even the smallest headway between Reagan and Jack.

"Lucy will be glad to see her," Reagan says, not bothering to correct Jack. "And I know Amy's missed her. They talk a lot but it's not the same."

He nods, _again_ , and stares at the porch, like he always does around her. Jack and Reagan eye contact is about as rare as Shane and vagina contact, though Reagan thinks _that_ might be slightly more pleasurable.

"I've been meaning to… well…" Jack sighs and brings his hands together, cracking his knuckles. There's no glass out here for him to hold, no club soda and ice to rattle around to soothe his nerves. "I wanted to thank you," he finally stammers out. "For including me, you know, in the wedding and all. For letting me be a part of the family."

Reagan knows she should let it go, she should just nod or say 'you're welcome' or just say nothing and move the fuck on.

So, of course, she says "I hate you, you know?"

It's not the first time she's said it - and she's sure it won't be the last - and Jack doesn't even flinch. He just nods and stares at the porch, hands clutched and cracking, like he knew it was coming and he knows he has to take it, like it's his penance.

Like it will _ever_ be _enough_.

"I hate you," Reagan repeats, mostly just because she likes the sound of it. "I hate that there's a part of Amy that I will never know because you killed it." She scoots forward on the swing, hands on her knees and eyes staring straight ahead. "I hate that it took _you_ to bring me and Karma together. I hate that I _can't_ hate Lucy because she's so much like Amy and because _she_ didn't do anything to deserve it and I _hate_ that I can't hate you for bringing her to us."

Jack sits there and Jack takes it and Jack doesn't say a thing and Reagan thinks she might hate _that_ even more.

"I hate that you'll be a part of my wedding tomorrow," she says and she _means_ it. "And I hate that I _have_ to do that, that I have to do it _all the time_ , that I have to _try_. That I have to play the good little fiancee and tolerate you, that I have to put on a happy face and smile and act like the fact that _you're_ here and _my_ father…"

Reagan closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She doesn't want to cry. She _won't_ cry.

"Amy needs you," she says. "She needs you and she wants you and so I deal and I encourage it and I _live_ with it." The 'but I hate every fucking second of it and _that_ is all your fault you fucking douche' is left unsaid.

"I know -"

"No," Reagan says, cutting him off. "You _don't_. You don't know the first thing about it. You know nothing about putting aside everything you think and everything you feel because the person you love needs you to. Even when you think it's the worst and most unhealthy and most incredibly stupid need they could _ever_ have."

Neither of them says anything for a long moment, both of them wondering what the _fuck_ is taking Amy so long. Finally, Jack clears his throat and Reagan can tell _he's_ been crying.

"You know what it is _I_ hate about you?" he asks. "It's _that_ ," he says. "It's that you love her enough… _so much_ … that you put it all aside. That your love for her is so great, you'll hurt yourself like that, you'll live with that. For her."

"You hate _that_?"

Jack nods. "Yes," he says. "Because it's a Goddamned reminder. A reminder that I'm the reason you _have_ to." He looks at her. "It's not enough and it's… pathetically inadequate but… I'm sorry."

Reagan doesn't look at him and she knows time is short. Amy could come out at any second and they worked so hard today, fixing and correcting and making things right again, as best they could. She won't screw that up.

But…

"Tomorrow I will marry your daughter," she says, standing up from the swing. "And we'll be linked even more than we already are. And… _clearly_ … you're never gonna listen to me and just _go_." He shakes his head but they both know he could vow it from now until he dies and she still would never really _believe_ it. "And after tomorrow, I will keep on doing what I do. I will keep trying and I will keep living with and so long as she's happy that won't change."

She turns then, looking him right in the eye because she wants him to hear this part, she wants him to _feel_ it.

"After tomorrow," Reagan says. "You _will_ be my father-in-law. But make no mistake, Jack. You? Will _never_ be my family."

She turns and walks inside and she thinks that, for once, Jack's the one being left.

It's still not enough. And Reagan knows it never will be.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma tries to help Lauren with her Glenn problem and Amy and Reagan can't help getting involved.

Karma shouldn't be worried about Lauren. She really shouldn't.

And ' _see_?' she wants to yell ( _scream_ ) at Shane (cause this is _totally_ his fault.) _This_ is what baby brain does to you. She's repeating herself. Shouldn't be worried about Lauren... she just thought _that_.

She _did_ and it seems like… she doesn't know… just a few minutes ago, like just a couple chapters ago. You know, if her life was a story someone was writing or something.

Karma shakes her head. _This_ (too) is what baby brain does. It makes you _crazy._ A story… what room full of monkeys banging on keyboards could possibly be fucked up enough to write _this_?

Still… Karma knows that she really _shouldn't_ be worried _about_ Lauren or _for_ Lauren cause, yeah, she's got a lot to do and plenty to handle, what with bridesmaid's _stuff_ and performance _stuff_ and pregnant _stuff_ \- and _Shane_ \- and it isn't like Lauren needs the worries. She's perfectly capable of handling her own mess. It's not like Lauren is like some kind of weird little human cookie - and yes, baby brain does make you think of everything in food terms and, also, mmmm _cookies_ \- you know, all hard and tough on the outside, but then soft and gooey in the middle.

Lauren is anything but soft and she's certainly not gooey and it isn't like she just _projects_ that for everyone to see and, really, she's as fragile and breakable as the rest of them, secretly really a complete cupcake with an already once shattered heart who should be protected at all costs.

That isn't Lauren at all.

Nope.

Not even a lit…

_Fuck_.

Karma sighs as she shakes her head and makes her way (slowly) (cause that's how she does everything now) off the stage and over to where Lauren's still standing, right where Glenn left her, alone with her folders, her one true loves that never fail her. Karma feels like she's waddling, which is just simply ridiculous cause she's not even _showing_ yet. Not unless she takes her top off. And turns sideways. And sticks her stomach out. And looks really really _really_ close.

Then? Oh, _then_ she's totally showing. Shane even said so.

"Yes, Karma," he said. "Like a beach ball, Karma. Soon you'll be all whale-y and ginormous and blocking out the sun, Karma. And then everyone will stare and did I say 'soon'? I totally meant _tomorrow_. Like right during the wedding and you'll probably bust the seams on your dress and, _seriously_ , are you gonna be like this _whole_ nine months cause, _really_ , this shit is _already_ exhausting."

Sometimes, Karma thinks she should have picked a better (and straighter) (and actually into her and maybe into a ring on her finger and little somethin' somethin' in somewhere _else_ ) baby daddy.

And _then_ , she spends the next twenty minutes hyperventilating and freaking out and losing her _shit_ at the thought that _she_ is Shane Harvey's baby _mama_ and she swears up and down to herself that she's never thinking of it like _that_ again.

She reaches Lauren and the folder-fest and pulls up a chair, dropping down into it as she pulls another one close, swinging her legs up so she can rest her feet on it. She may not be showing yet but _fuck all_ do her ankles _kill_. She's going for totally casual, no nothing wrong with _me_ , I'm not hiding a secret, you know, _inside_ me, and no, really, let's talk about _you_.

(And not just cause they need to _start_ talking about Lauren so they can _finish_ talking about Lauren and move on to _her.)_

(Not _just_.)

"You OK?" Karma asks, knowing full well it's totally pointless because, of course, Lauren's going to say yes, she's fine, there's nothing wrong, why would anything be _wrong_.

"I'm _fine_ ," Lauren says, not even bothering to turn around. "Why wouldn't I be _fine_?"

Close enough.

Karma shrugs. "You seemed a little stressed," she says, which they both know is, more or less, Lauren's default setting. "I mean… more than, you know, _usual_."

Lauren shuffles some folders, moving a blue one here and a green one there and even Karma can tell she's just doing it for something to _do_ , a small gesture to show just how _fine_ she is.

"It's the wedding, that's all," Lauren says. "There's still so much to do and now Amy's managed to piss Reagan off and she's _trying_ to fix it, but that's like a fifty-fifty shot she won't make it _worse_ , so…" It's her turn to shrug. "Just a lot on my mind, that's all."

Years ago, Karma would have let it go right there. Which is not true, really, because years ago, like ten of them (if we're gonna be _specific_ ), like anytime _before_ the time Lauren drilled Liam in the nuts right outside her bedroom door, Karma _couldn't_ have let it go right there because it never would have _gotten_ to there, because 'there' is friendly and 'there' is caring and 'there' is actually giving a _fuck_ and that wasn't them.

She hated Lauren and Lauren hated her and they were _both_ fine with that, that was as it should have been, the accepted Cold War in their little clique, the balance in their Force.

_That_ was years ago.

"He's not gonna wait around forever, you know," Karma says.

Clearly, this _isn't_ years ago.

Lauren pauses in her foldering - which Karma immediately decides is _so_ a word (thank you, baby brain) - and she watches as Lauren's shoulders tense, her neck goes stiff and her entire posture stiffens like a sword and maybe, Karma thinks (worries), she might have gone just a bit too far. Sure, she and Lauren _are_ friends now, maybe even something more than that, maybe even bordering on _family_ , but…

But this is still Lauren. And this is still Lauren _and_ Glenn and _that's_ … well… that's Voldemort, that's he (or they) ( _them_?) that shall not be named or even spoken of, at least not out loud, at least not where Lauren can hear it. Those are the rules, the ones they all agreed on and promised to abide by. At least until if or when Lauren brought it up.

Amy insisted it was an 'if' and Karma swore it was a 'when' and Shane and Reagan just drank and ignored them both.

Those are the rules but, let's face it, Karma's never been big on rules.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lauren says ( _lies_ ) and she tries to roll her neck and shrug her shoulders and loosen the sheath of stiffness swallowing her spine. She goes back to sorting through her folders, pulling out flower maps and menus and she _acts_ like studying them, like she's reviewing every last detail to make sure that every _one_ of those details is _perfect_ because she _needs_ _something_ to be perfect.

Karma ain't buying it. "You finished all that weeks ago," she says, stretching her legs and trying to find a position where her ankles don't feel like dead weights chained to her feet. "And you know that I know that because _I_ know _you_ and _you_ would never leave anything to chance, you'd never leave anything to the last minute."

Of _course_ she wouldn't and yes, Lauren knows that Karma knows and she knows that Karma knows that she knows that Karma knows and… dammit all this knowing is making her head hurt more than it already did.

Reviewing and studying and sorting - _pretending_ to do all three - is nothing but a distraction, a _good_ one, Lauren thought - a good _wall_ , really, a Trumpian sized stone and concrete fucker with barbed wire (and barbed _wit_ ) all along the top. It's so big and so imposing and so damn _obvious_ in it's 'leave it _alone_ '-ness that no one would be stupid enough to try and climb it.

No one except, apparently, Karma because - _clearly_ \- she doesn't understand walls (or boundaries.) Or, probably, Shane, mostly because climbing it would annoy Lauren and even now he can't pass _that_ up. Or, _possibly_ , Amy, if she could manage to get out of her own way long enough.

And, definitely, Reagan cause… well… _Reagan_.

"This," Lauren mutters, mostly to herself, "is why I always had minions and not friends."

"Yeah," Karma says with a laugh that makes Lauren roll her eyes. "We do suck, don't we."

Lauren finally turns, leaning herself against the table, hands resting behind her, on the cool surface of a couple of her folders. She cocks an eyebrow at Karma, wondering if she actually thinks she's fooling _anyone_. "I'm _fine_ ," she says, _again_. "It is what it is," she says and yes, she knows that's cliche and yes, she knows it's vague and even a little annoying.

And _yes_ , she knows it's total _bullshit_.

Karma just nods and stares and sits there with her feet up and a blank look on her face and Lauren knows that _look_ is total _bullshit_ cause Karma is many, many things (including, but not limited to, irritating and frustrating and caring and aggravating and _lying_ and did she mention _irritating_?)

"I'm _fine_ ," Lauren stresses, unable to stand the silence anymore.

Karma nods, _again_. "So you said," she says. "But…"

There's a but because _of course_ there's a but, with Karma there's _always_ a but.

"But," she says, "I was looking over the guest list." She and Lauren both know she was doing no such thing and not _just_ because Lauren hasn't let the thing out of her sight in months. "You know Amy's cousins are coming, right? The ones from Houston?"

Of course Lauren knows they're coming. She knows the names and plus-ones and seating assignments and _everything_ about _everyone_ who's coming to the wedding. She's like Big Brother only, you know, tiny and a sister and not at all interested in knowing everything she can about everyone in case she can use it to her advantage.

Oh… _wait_ …

"I know," Lauren says. "Except they moved. They're from Florida now."

Florida. With all the sun and all the beach and all the perfect beach bodies, like _theirs_ (the best their inheritance from Nana could buy) and they're so… _ugh_ … like, really, they live in one of the fucking sunniest places on the planet but they still _buy_ their tans and they're not technically jailbait anymore, but they still dress like it and Lauren's pretty sure they couldn't even _pronounce_ , let alone _explain_ feminism.

Yeah, she knows they're coming. She's well fucking _aware_.

"I'm just saying" Karma just _says_ , even though no one who has ever said _that_ is _just_ saying anything. "They're gonna be here and, last I heard from Amy, they're all single." She laughs - a tiny little 'I don't really mean it, but it's good for effect' kinda thing - and shakes her head. "Not that it would matter at all to any of them if they _weren't_."

Lauren knows she shouldn't ask - "And that matters to _me_ , why?" - because she _knows_ why and she's been thinking about _why_ for days and she's really tired of _why_ , but _God_ , if Karma's thinking of it too, then…

She's fucked.

"I'm just saying," Karma says _again_ and Lauren has the urge to slap her. "They're gonna be here and they're _gonna_ be drunk and they're gonna be _easy_ and Glenn…" She shrugs. "He'll be here too, in his fancy dress uniform and _obviously_ he's not _my_ type, but still…" Karma's eyes dance and she smirks just a little, just _enough_. "Like the song says, every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man."

She's not wrong. The last time Glenn was in his dress blues, Lauren even caught Amy staring and _there's_ an image she'd like permanently bleached from her mind. "I don't much care what Glenn does or who he does it _with_ ," Lauren says, shooting for matter-of-fact and, if her voice hadn't cracked (just a little) on 'who', she might have pulled it off. "Why would I?"

Lauren doesn't regret much (not kicking Liam sooner) (marrying Theo) (not taking Reagan's cousin Selena up on her 'one time thing' offer back in college) but she _immediately_ regrets asking _that_ , regrets it the moment the words hit the air cause it's not _just_ a question and it's not _just_ a bit fat fucking _lie_.

It's an invitation, it's asking Dracula to come on in, it's the opening Karma's been waiting for.

"Why would you?" Karma asks, dropping her feet from the other chair and sitting up, at full attention (and practically fucking vibrating in her seat) now. "Oh, I don't _know_ ," she says and they both know she _knows_. "Maybe because _you're_ the _who_ he's been doing?"

Lauren could deny it, it's what she's good at. She could lie, she could obfuscate, she could dissemble (there's a reason she's the only one of them to get out of college with a 4.0.) She could make up a billion and one reasons why there's _no way_ she and Glenn could possibly be together.

She's _really_ good at that. She's been doing it for _months._

But she's… tired. Tired of the secrets and tired of the lies and just plain fucking _tired_.

"Just keep your voice down, alright?" she says, watching as Karma's eyes bulge at the apparent admission, shocked that Lauren would cave so easily. "I don't need everyone knowing about it, OK?"

Karma snorts back a laugh, the sight of Lauren's glare only making it _worse_. "You don't need… you think… oh…" She's got to catch her breath for a moment, holding up one finger to Lauren as if to say 'I'll be right with you'. Karma leans back in her chair, scanning the restaurant until she spots Shane, back over by the stage and calls out to him. "Shane!" she hollers, ignoring the pained gasp from Lauren. "Did you know Lauren and Glenn were a… _thing_?"

A voice cuts through the dining area before Shane can answer. " _I_ knew Lauren and Glenn were a thing," Jana calls from the kitchen, poking her head out of the 'Employees Only' door. "Were we not _supposed_ to know that?"

Lauren goes limp against the table, sagging into it like her bones have dissolved inside her and and all she's left with is skin (incredibly clear and _soft_ ) and hair (perfect, as always) and a glare that could scare the devil himself. "Everyone knows?" she asks and Karma nods. "Even Amy?"

"Who do you think told _her_?"

Amy drops down into the empty chair between them, her eyes darting back and forth between best friend and sister and she's been _here_ before but at least this time she doesn't think anyone's going to die or get punched in the face.

Probably.

Lauren shakes her head. "Well," she says, "it doesn't matter because there's no… _thing_ … anymore." She turns to look at Amy. "And weren't you supposed to be making things right with Reagan instead of sticking your nose in my non-existent… _thing_?"

"Yes," Amy says. "And I handled it, crisis averted and, before you ask, she's still alive _and_ still here, she just needed a moment by herself. I just came in to grab my stuff, I'm gonna go with my dad to pick up Lucy at the airport and no," she turns to Karma, "you can't come."

Karma shrugs, like she's totally not bothered at all and, really, she's not. She and Lucy already have plans to hang out tonight after the rehearsal and not having to spend far longer than she'd like in a car with… _Jack_ … is all good.

"Wait," Lauren says (and totally not to keep the subject _off_ her). "Reagan's outside alone _and_ your dad is coming to get you? You think _that's_ a good plan?"

Amy rolls her eyes. "I'll be like five minutes, tops," she says. "I'm sure Reagan and my father can be in the same place at the same time, _alone_ , for five minutes without bloodshed."

Lauren and Karma just stare at her.

"OK," she says, "they probably _can't_ , usually, but it's the day before my wedding and their gonna behave and stop trying to rain on my parade and besides," she says, turning in her seat to look right at Lauren, "we were talking about _you_."

Well… _fuck_.

"I told you," Lauren says. "There's nothing to talk _about_. Glenn and I aren't a thing and we never _were_ a thing. We were just… you know."

Amy says nothing and Karma nods. _She_ does know, she knows _exactly_ , because while the others picked up on it and knew it was there (and _may_ have placed bets on how long it would last and _maybe_ Shane owes her fifty bucks), they basically ignored it and left Lauren and Glenn to their own devices.

Karma _watched_.

She watched and she studied and she paid attention and she's never been quite sure why or why it seems to matter to her so much, but she has and it does and there's nothing she can do about _that_ but, maybe, there's something she can do about _it_.

"He wouldn't," Karma says softly and Lauren looks up, understanding exactly what Karma's talking about, even if Amy looks completely lost. "Glenn and your cousins," Karma says, clearing things up a little. "He wouldn't and not just because even though it's not _really_ cheating it would be close enough for you and he knows how you feel about that."

"Karma -" Lauren tries, but Karma shakes her head and cuts her off.

"He wouldn't do it because he's not going to even _see_ them," she says. "No matter how hot they look, no matter how much they throw themselves at him - and they will - they're never even gonna register because his eyes… I've seen the way they look at _you_." Karma smiles, but it doesn't quite reach _her_ eyes. "I'd _kill_ for someone's eyes to see me that way, especially if I treated them like you treat him -"

It's Lauren's turn for the cut off. "Like _I've_ treated _him_?"

"She's got a point," Amy says and four eyes spin her direction and she shrugs. "What? She _does_. You're not even _nice_ to him."

Lauren's cheeks flush as her mind - being the dirty fucker that spending so much time with Glenn has turned it into - flashes back to two nights ago, when she was very very _very_ nice to him in the cold storage room in the back.

Twice.

"I am _so_ nice to him," she protests, but there's nothing behind it, no certainty or power or bite.

In short? No _Lauren_.

"Lauren," Karma says, speaking slowly and clearly, like she's talking to a kid. "The last time we all hung out, you went on a twenty minute rampage at him."

"But -"

Amy jumps in. "You told him about studies about overly macho men and how their need to show their masculinity in combat often corresponded to small penis size."

"But…" Lauren stammers. "Studies," she says. "And _reports_ ," she snaps. "And… and…" she sighs. "And he was just being so…"

"So Glenn?" Reagan walks up, leaning against the back of Amy's chair, resting one hand on her fiancee's shoulder. "Believe me," she says, "I get _that_. I've been dealing with _so_ Glenn all my life."

Lauren nods. " _Exactly_ ," she says. "He was just being so… _him_."

"And being him," Karma says. "That's a bad thing?"

Well… maybe not _bad_ … but maybe not, you know, _good_ …

Or, maybe… probably… most likely… you know, _definitely_ … _too_ good.

Lauren sighs and gives in and not just the halfway giving in she's been doing. She goes whole fucking hog.

"Sometimes," she says, "some nights, I wake up, in the middle of the night, you know? Cause I have nightmares about coming home and finding Theo in bed with that…"

"Whore?" Karma offers.

"Bitch?" Amy suggest.

"Tramp who got her tires slashed every day for like a month and will probably never shop at that Target by Farrah's house again?" Reagan asks. "Or… you know… bitch."

Lauren nods - vigorously - without specifying which one she's agreeing with cause, really, it's all of them and they all know it. "And I know he only lives three doors down, so it's not like he's going across town in the middle of the night but…" (but he _would_ and she knows it.) "I'll call him and he'll come and he stays, just holding me and not saying a word cause he knows I don't want to talk about it and he just…" She squeezes her eyes shut because maybe she's giving in but she's _not_ crying. "He doesn't leave," she says. "He _never_ leaves."

Glenn comes when she calls and he stays until she asks him to go and every time it gets harder and harder for her to actually _ask_. He buys her flowers to take to the cemetery (in _Dallas_ ) on the anniversary of her mother's death and he leaves her a cupcake on her front step on her birthday and he got hammered with her the day her divorce was finalized.

"I threw myself at him," Lauren says. "I got the paperwork in the mail and I started drinking before I even opened the envelope."

None of them say anything but they all know. They watched it, the year long process, and they know how hard it was on Lauren, how much the divorce took from her. She felt like her father, like Farrah, like she'd done what they'd done all those times and all those years before each other. Lauren had thought - she'd _believed_ \- that she and Theo weren't Bruce and wife #2 or #3 or even Bruce and Farrah.

They were Bruce and her mother. Till _death_ do they part.

Finding Theo and that girl together, in _their_ bed, and then walking away - _literally_ \- moving out and finding a new house, a new _home_ , that had all _been_ a death for Lauren. One she'd never quite shaken off. Not until Glenn.

"I was so drunk and so alone that I… I _begged_ ," Lauren says, whispering the word. "I begged Glenn to… to _take me_ … and do you know what he did?" She laughs, just hard enough to spill the tears. "He took me. To bed. And he tucked me in and he rubbed my back till I fell asleep and then he spent the whole night in that rocking chair in the corner of my room."

Karma scoots forward and reaches out, taking one of Lauren's hands in hers, while Amy takes the other. "I know how terrifying it can be," she says, "facing something new, something that… _big_." Karma's other hand unconsciously finds its way to her belly. "Especially when you've been hurt before."

Amy squeezes her sister's hand in agreement. "And _I_ know how hard it is to let go of the past," she says, casting a brief ( _very_ ) sidelong glance at Karma. "Especially when it was something you thought would always be."

Lauren glances up at Reagan. "And you?"

Reagan shrugs. "All _I_ know is that when you find the right one, you _know_." Her hand is still on Amy's shoulder, but she doesn't feel the need to toss in that possessive little squeeze just because Karma's there. Not anymore. " _And_ ," she says, "and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Lolo, but if you don't go chase my dumbass brother down and do… whatever you two do that I don't _ever_ need to hear about… you're an even bigger idiot than he is."

Lauren glances back at the other two and they both nod.

"What she said," Amy says. "Trust me, just assume she's right, it'll save you time in the long run."

"Jack's here," Reagan says (without mentioning anything _else_.) "I'm sure he and Amy could give you a ride to the hotel if you wanted."

"No pressure or anything," Lauren mutters. She pushes off the table and looks back at her folders, still scattered every which way.

"Reagan and I will take care of those," Karma says (and no, she can't really believe she said it either.) "Go." She drops Lauren's hand and waves her toward the door. "Go make it right."

Lauren nods and Amy stands, grabbing her stuff from behind her chair. One quick kiss and a murmured 'I love you' to Reagan (they never leave without it) and the sisters are on their way.

Karma stands - slowly, cause _damn_ her ankles - and leans against the table, next to Reagan, watching the other two go.

"Think they've got a chance?" she asks. "Your brother and Lauren?"

Reagan shrugs and moves to start sorting the folders. "We got to be friends so I guess stranger things have happened. "

Karma nods as she stacks a few folders together, trying to stick with Lauren's color coding but that's a losing battle and, pretty quickly, she and Reagan are just stacking them together in the middle of the table.

They both step back to admire their handiwork - and contemplate Lauren's stroke when she sees it - and Reagan bumps Karma's shoulder with her own, the weirdest grin on her face.

"Hell," Reagan says, the grin only getting bigger. "You and Shane are having a kid," she says and Karma feels every bit of blood in her body _run_ from her face. " _Anything's_ possible, right?"


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and her father talk. A lot. Like, A LOT.

Go with him, she said.

Go with him and pick up your sister, she said. It'll be good for you, she said. You've missed Lucy, she said, and it's only fifteen minutes, she said, and Lucy will be so excited to see you and the two of you is so much better than just _him_ , she said.

Go with your father and then, later, when you see that I'm right, you can _thank_ me _properly_ , she _said_.

Amy stares out the window - the same one she's been staring out for the last _forty-five_ , not _fifteen_ , no matter what _she_ said - and imagines all the ways she's going to… _thank_ … Reagan for this.

It's the one on her side of the car - the window - and there's not much to see, not much she _can_ see, just the bright white line along the edge, the one that reminds you to _stay_ \- as in stay _put_ , stay _inside the lines_ , stay in your fucking _lane_ (advice Amy thinks her wife to be could fucking _use_ ) - and she knows, from experience, that there's some grass just past that and some trees, little scrub bushes and scraggily looking fuckers to stubborn to die.

Not that she's, you know, _projecting_ or anything.

Amy can't really _see_ much of all that, though. She _can_ see the line - all bright and freshly repainted, her tax dollars at work and oh _God_ , she's old enough to be bitching about her _tax dollars_ and how the hell did _that_ happen - but the grass and the trees, such as they are, are little more than green fuzzy blurs she can't really make out, not as anything more than smudges in the dirt and cracks in the glass.

She knows Jack's window is clean and Jack's window is fixed but Jack's window is just _that_ , it's _Jack's_ , and - more importantly - Jack's window is _over there_ and Amy just can't look _over there_ cause, well, it's over _there_ and so is his head and all the parts of _that_ , like his eyes (that she _so_ doesn't want looking at her) and his ears (no hearing her) and his mouth and it's habit of opening and having all those sounds come out of it, all aimed at her.

You know… _talking_.

Looking over there would be looking at _him_ and looking at him is too close to an _invitation_ , too much of an _opening_ cause he's _always_ looking for one of those, always taking every one he can find, every one she accidentally leaves him (and it's _always_ an accident). Jack's always looking for a chance to talk to her, not unlike the way he used to look for a bottle or a glass or - in his more desperate moments - a _can_ , and Amy gets it, she _understands_ , but sometimes… _most_ times… it's just too much and hearing him right now, listening to him stammer and stutter and try to make even the smallest of small talk, it would just ruin the silence.

And right about now, the silence is all she's got.

So she _doesn't_ \- look over there or look _anywhere_ or leave even the tiniest of openings - and she knows, knows in a way that actually does _hurt_ that _that's_ the story of her and Jack.

He tries. He looks, he waits, he _hopes_.

And she doesn't.

It is, she thinks, not all that different from him and the window. It's dirty (and not in the good 'oh, we're gonna be married now so we can do _that_ ' kinda way she and Reagan _are_ and why does her mind always go _there_ , oh, wait, cause _Reagan_ ) and it's busted, riddled with tiny cracks and divots and pockmarks marring the glass. It's been that way forever, covered in the sort of… _ugh_ … that doesn't come off in the wash, the kind that's caked _on_ and baked _in,_ melted to the glass by the sun and frozen into it by the cold.

It took _years_ to get that bad but even more _time_ probably won't fix it, it's probably past the point of no return but that doesn't stop Jack, that doesn't stop him from scrubbing it and soaping it and scraping at it and sometimes he gets somewhere, every once in a while he chips off just a little, knocks off one layer of crap.

But there's always another just underneath.

"You could just _fix_ it," Reagan says, like once a month, give or take. She doesn't say much to Jack, not usually. But that window… it just _bugs_. "Just shatter the shit and get a new one and move the fuck on."

(And no, Amy doesn't think her fiancee really quite gets how… _accurate_ … that suggestion might be. Or, if she _does_? Amy doesn't want to know.)

"I will," Jack always says. "Someday, maybe," he shrugs, like there's a chance that someday might ever really come. "When I get that far. But it's expensive and it's not hurting anyone and there's better… things… for me to spend my money on."

Once upon a time, Amy knows, those 'better' things would have come in tall glass bottles with ornate labels promising nothing less than eighty proof - her father was not a _cheap_ drunk, he had _discerning_ tastes, at least at first, at least until he was perpetually _too_ drunk to know any better - but now, she knows, those 'better' things are actually _better_.

Like food. Healthy food, actually. Jack eats the sorts of things she avoids like the plague - stuff that's green and leafy and would never end up on the inside of the Planter's menu - and it's one of the excuses Amy always uses for why they never have dinner at his place.

Things like clothes. He ruins at least a shirt a week at Hester, covering it in paint or clay or sometimes burning bits of it off when he's helping the students who think melting and smashing and fucking with metal is actually art (sorry, not sorry, Liam.) And things like rent for his apartment - he's never been late, not even a day, not even _once_ \- and the monthly installments on the student loans he took out for Lucy, the ones that will probably _outlive_ him and the monthly expenses to keep the coffee shop up and running and turning a modest profit, even after the Starbucks opened down the street.

And things like her.

Her, as in the monthly account he thinks she doesn't know about. "He'd hate me and probably sue me if he knew I told you," Bruce said to her, the day _after_ he helped Jack set it up. "But, I thought maybe you should know, not that it should make a difference or change your mind or anything," he said.

Even if he kinda thought maybe it should. Maybe just a _little_.

Bruce gave her all the details, even when she didn't ask. He told her that Jack deposits the money himself, religiously, on the fifth of every month, after "his rent check clears and the mortgage on the shop has come out." He takes the money directly to the bank, no automatic withdrawal, no direct deposit.

"I think it's important to him," Bruce said. "You know, that he signs that slip every month, that he does it himself, that no computer's doing it where he can't see or he doesn't have to think about it. He has to go, he has to sign, he has to… he has to choose."

Jack's chosen, every month, for almost nine years now. He takes the seven minute walk (Amy took it herself once and timed it and no, that doesn't mean _anything_ ) down the street from the shop to the bank. It's not his usual bank, not the one that handles the shop business and his monthly bills and his checking and his savings and his - fairly meager- retirement. It's a credit union, a local only in Austin kinda deal, and he goes in and he stands in line and he signs that slip and hands the teller the small stack of bills.

It's a drop in the bucket, like a penny tossed in a wishing well. Amy knows what he's doing, she knows he's tossing that penny (50,000 of them at a time, actually) and he's not telling anyone about it - cause then the wish won't come true _and_ cause someone (Reagan, maybe, Farrah, probably, Lauren _assuredly_ ) would tell him he can't _buy_ back what he's lost - and he's hoping that maybe someday it'll earn him a return on his investment, the kind of interest a bank just can't pay.

Problem is, Amy's not sure _she_ can ever pay it either.

So she _doesn't_. She doesn't let it change a thing and she doesn't think any more (or any less) of him because of it, because of _any_ of it. She acknowledges, each and every week in counseling, that Jack's doing things differently, that he's made and _making_ changes and that she _sees_ them.

Seeing _is_ believing and she does _believe_. But believing isn't trusting and Amy _doesn't_ do that, not yet. Someday, maybe.

When she gets that far.

* * *

Go with him, she said. It's only _fifteen_ minutes, she said.

She fucking _lied_.

OK, so maybe Reagan didn't exactly _lie_ , not _technically_ , but that doesn't _matter_ , not when Amy passed _technically_ about an hour ago and not when she passed _exactly_ about ten minutes after _that_ and then passed _giving a shit_ and _oh, I'm gonna make her pay for this_ and _fucking kill me now_ ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes after _that_.

Amy stares out the window without _seeing_ and taps out a text without _looking_. Really, it isn't so much a 'tap' as it is a _stab_ , as it is her fingers _punching_ the keys and yes, she knows that's an expression for making the keys 'work' but no, that's not what she's _doing_. She's actually _punching_ , hoping she can somehow transfer that… _energy_ … through the keys in a literal 'I _swear_ to _God_ , Reagan, when you get this message, I hope _it_ punches _you_. I hope it punches you right in your perfect beautiful I'm so going to sit on it for like a _week_ for _this_ face.'

They're getting married in a day. She's allowed to think things like that now.

Not that she ever _didn't_ , not that once that door (the face sitting one, not the punching one, though Reagan doesn't _mind_ a little pain, which is gonna be helpful _later_ ) was opened Amy didn't spend an _inordinate_ amount of time thinking about _that_. She's thought about _that_ (and a long long _long_ list of other thats) for most of the last ten years.

You get to see Reagan naked on a regular basis and see if you think of anything else.

Jack drums his fingers on the wheel and it snaps Amy out of her own head and she sees the flush of her cheeks reflected in the window and remembers _why_ she was thinking of _that_ and oh, yes, there's the whole she's going to _kill_ Reagan thing.

She almost forgot.

Amy still won't look at him, even if staring like this is giving her such a crick in the neck, like you wouldn't _believe_ , but she doesn't need to _see_ him, she can _feel_ him there - his _presence -_ and _that's_ not surprising since they're the only two there and the car's the size of a fucking matchbox and he's damn near _vibrating_ in his seat. Amy _knows_ he's slowly losing his mind, that he's probably only got another ten minutes in him before he cracks.

It's not hard for her to know Jack, not anymore. He's so fucking _obvious_ about everything, so _out_ there with it all, like a damn neon sign, blinking at her all the time, like he doesn't want her to miss a thing, like he needs her to see it all, cause, really, he _does_.

"I can tell you I'm a changed man," he said to her during one of their first appointments with Suzette, who insisted on first names and no 'Dr.'. "I can list off everything that's different, everything that's better," he said and Amy sat there, silently hoping he wouldn't. "But those… they're just words."

Just _his_ words.

And _that_ was the problem - not the _only_ one, but maybe the _biggest_ \- because most of _Jack's_ words were, to her, just like him. Empty. Hollow. Pointless. Might have mattered, you know, _years_ ago. Might matter more _now_ if not for those… other ones.

_I'm leaving_. _I'm leaving because of you_.

And yes, Amy knows he explained _that_ and yes, she _understands_ and yes, she's accepted the apology and the explanation and the tears and yay for her, it's all fucking better now except when it's not and if that _not_ is like the first, say _thirty_ _seconds_ of every time she sees him?

Well, it used to be the first five minutes, so progress, right?

Suzette reminds her like nearly _every_ week that "No one ever said it would be easy," and Amy knows that (even without the reminder) and she never thought it would be.

"Nothing worthwhile ever is, right?" she asks, though not every week and it's not really a question because she knows it's true. None of the worthwhile things she has - Karma, Lauren, _Reagan_ \- were _easy_. But they _were_ worth it and, sooner or later, Amy knows, she's going to have to decide if _Jack_ is.

She's hoping for later.

Like, maybe after she and Reagan are married.

Or after they've sent their two kids (she wants one, Reagan wants three, they split the difference) off to college.

Or after they've all retired and Lucy and her wife (or husband, her call) are living on one side of them and Karma and her husband (or Shane, _her_ call) are living on the other - and Lauren visits from Washington D.C. when she's not busy _bossing_ \- and Jack and whatshername from the coffee shop are sharing a room at the local 'adult living facility' and he doesn't even really remember her so it doesn't matter what she says.

Amy hopes for later (if not _that_ later) but she suspects it'll be sooner (cause it's been a fucking _decade_ already and how far down the road can she really kick that can?) but she knows that sooner is not today (cause _rehearsal)_ and later is not tomorrow (cause _wedding_ ) and so she just keeps on doing what she does.

Staring out the window and ignoring the _fuck_ out of it until she can't anymore.

Jack twitches next to her and by now she's sure that every muscle in his body - and every dumb part of his mind, the ones that can never leave well enough alone and can't help pushing and that are probably mixing him a drink even as they sit there - have probably hit 'fuck it' head-on.

His neck (that hasn't turned once) and his shoulders (that refuse to slump) and his jaw (set so tight that his teeth are probably ground down to nubs) are all arguing with him, screaming at him, _pleading_ with his head (or what's _inside_ it) to just… _give._

Turn, they're begging. Smile, they're crying. Say _something_ , they're demanding. Pretend like this isn't torture and pain and hell. Stop holding back and just fucking act (even if it is _an_ act) like you're people who actually, you know, _like_ each other (even if Amy avoids _that_ word like the plague.)

She waits, expecting it any second. She waits and she waits and she waits and Jack just keeps staring straight ahead and, except for his fingers drumming on the wheel, he doesn't make a sound.

And that can keeps right on bouncing down the road.

* * *

It takes two hours - which is about an hour and fifty five minutes longer than Amy would have expected - but Jack finally cracks.

"It was an accident," he says.

And oh, the places Amy's mind goes…

"Up ahead, I mean," he adds, quickly - quick enough that _she_ suspects that _he_ suspects what's running through her mind, all the thoughts of what he might be trying to excuse _this_ time and, really, what does _that_ say about the _both_ of them - and he's holding out his phone so she can see the GPS with the little flashing accident symbol blinking away. "That's what was holding everything up."

_Was_. He says 'was' like it's still _not_ , and yeah, they're moving ( _finally_ ) but six feet in the last ten minutes is still _six feet_ and Amy somehow manages to be… _not_ rude (not polite, because polite indicates caring and Suzette and weekly work and ten _years_ or not, she's fresh out of care _today_ )... and not mention that she knows it as an accident.

It said so on the traffic report on the radio, the one Jack switched on (but clearly didn't, you know, _listen_ to) ten minutes ago ( _Traffic and Weather Together! On the Tens!) and_ it showed it on the traffic app she downloaded onto her own phone a half hour ago _and_ Farrah told her (via text) fifteen minutes before _that_ when Amy, jokingly, messaged to ask if the station's traffic copter could airlift her out.

Farrah said she'd have to check and they'd need exact coordinates and could Amy fake something, like a nut attack or a heart attack or a _bear_ attack, and Amy's sure she was only kidding.

Mostly.

Sorta.

Not really, not at _all_ cause, when it comes to Jack, Farrah's pretty much lost all sense of humor and Amy doesn't really blame her. Though her mother's… feelings… towards Jack do give Farrah and Reagan something else to bond over and that's just yet another reason for Amy to know she and Reagan can never get divorced.

She's not entirely sure who would get custody of her mother. Or Lauren. Or Shane, for that matter.

(At least she knows who would get Karma.)

(Yeah. No divorce. Not _ever_.)

The car lurches another few feet and Jack hits the brakes a little harder then he might need to and Amy can see (now that she's looking) that his knuckles are damn near white on the wheel before one hand drifts down to the shift, slipping the car into park ( _again_ ) cause, if the last few minutes have taught them anything, they're going to be _here_ for a bit.

Just like they were _there_ (five feet back) and just like they'll be _there_ (three and a half feet ahead) and at the rate they're going, Amy might miss the rehearsal _and_ the wedding.

"I texted your sister," Jack says. "Lucy, I mean." He always corrects himself, remembering _after_ the fact that Amy's got _two_ of those. "Her flight was a few minutes late too and so she's just getting there so, hopefully…"

"We get there before she has to take a flight _back_?" Amy offers and Jack laughs as she leans her head against the back of her seat, grateful that at least the _lack_ of silence isn't quite as… _tense_ … as the quiet was.

"Thank you for coming," he says and maybe she spoke ( _thought_ ) too soon. He's not looking at her and those knuckles have gone all tense and worried and pale again and Amy realizes _that's_ probably got less to do with the traffic than with the company. "I know it'll mean a lot to your sister that you came to get her." He shifts back into drive and they lurch forward again - _four_ feet this time - and he stops just a little smoother. "She's been… worried."

Amy squeezes her eyes shut and argues with herself that she _shouldn't_ , that it's best to just stay _quiet_ , that there's no _need_. "Worried?" she asks because _of course_ she does. "About _me_?"

She knows better than _that_. Lucy doesn't worry, Lucy's the calm one, Lucy's the easy going and measured and not prone to overreaction _at all_ one. It's like their father's DNA got chopped right down the middle and Amy - as usual - got the shit end of the deal.

The car shakes its way forward another half a dozen feet and Amy can just make out the sign for the airport exit in the distance, the _too far_ distance, the _no escape_ distance. "Sort of," Jack says and Amy knows it's very little _sort_. "More like about you… _and_ me." He flicks on the right turn signal, letting the cars next to them know he has to move over, not that there's much chance or much room for _that_. "Lucy thought, well, she was just…"

He glances over his shoulder, checking the other lane and very very _very_ obviously _not_ checking on _her_ and then shakes his head. He's frustrated and she knows it. There's so much he wants to say but he knows he can't.

And he knows that's his own damn fault.

"She was just being Lucy, you know," Jack says, blowing it off even though they both know he's already pulled the pin on that grenade and no amount of Lucy being Lucy _bullshit_ is going to be able to shove it back in. "She'll just be glad to see you."

Amy nods and lets the silence settle back in cause, really, if _he_ wants to just let it go, that's fine by _her_. She can just go back to her own thoughts (mostly the various and sometimes… _all_ the times... pornographic ways she's going to make Reagan pay for this) cause she doesn't need to hear anymore, _she_ doesn't _need_ to talk about it.

"She was worried you and I would fall apart without her, wasn't she?" Amy asks, wondering inside what it is about her that even _she_ ignores the hell out of herself when she says she _doesn't need_.

Jack shrugs, slowly angling the car, hoping someone in the other lane will actually be nice enough to let them in. "More like she was worried that there wasn't much _to_ fall apart," he says. "I think… well… _she_ , you know, _said_ … that was _her_ … concern." He stammers his way through it, trying to choose each word so carefully, trying to be so precise. It's like he's got the right - but not the _ability_ \- to remain silent and he knows anything he says can (and _will_ ) be used against him.

Jack understands the power of his words. _Now_.

Amy nods and stares out the windshield, that exit sign growing slowly (agonizingly, painfully, is it ever gonna fucking _get here_ slowly) closer. She gets it, she understands why Lucy might be a little bit worried about _that_. Her sister was - and _is -_ the one _good_ thing she and Jack have in common and without her there to host weekly dinners and drag Amy to the shop to hang out and, generally, charm the _fuck_ out of everyone and make it damn near _impossible_ for anyone to be miserable?

Yeah… a certain amount of falling apart might seem… inevitable.

But it's been ten years and they're still here and that has to count for… _something_ … doesn't it?

"I told her there was nothing for her to be worried about," Jack says without sounding _at all_ like he believes a word of _that_. "Whatever happens between you and me is up to you and me, not you and me _and_ her." He edges the car slowly to the right, turn signal blinking away. "And we're still seeing Suzette and I'm still following your rules, so…"

He doesn't say it like _that,_ but Amy still hears it that way. _Her_ rules. Like they're fucking arbitrary, like they're something she cooked up on a whim, like they're something she decided on just to punish him, to hurt him, to keep him at arm's length and never let him get too close.

Well… they _kinda_ are… but is that so _wrong_?

"I've got one rule," Amy told him the day she agreed to talk to him again and she specified very _very_ clearly that it was just _that_ , just _talk_ , and any kind of… relationship… was something so far far _far_ off (like _never_ far and not the _good_ kind of never far, the her and Reagan kind) and, back then, even counseling wasn't something she was ready for.

Even _just_ talking was something of a stretch but Jack had been back for three months then and he hadn't left (yet) and he hadn't pushed (much) and Amy kinda liked Lucy (even _as_ she also _hated_ and _resented_ and _cursed_ and did she mention _hated_ the fuck out of her) so she thought maybe she should _try_ talking, even if that went against advice from Karma. And Lauren. And Reagan and Farrah - though _she_ didn't _say_ anything but the tears said _enough_ \- and the only person who was OK with it was Nana.

"If you _don't_ ," her grandmother said, "you'll always wonder and if you _do_ , he can't really hurt you anymore than he already has and if he even comes close, I'll _cut_ him," and _everyone_ believed she actually _would_. But, she told Amy in no uncertain terms, she needed to make absolutely sure that if they did talk? "The bastard does it on _your_ terms."

"I've got one rule," Amy said, standing in front of Jack with her sister and her girlfriend and her best friend (and Shane, somewhere back there, probably flirting with the cute coffee dude at the counter) right behind her. She leaned over the coffee shop table, closer to him than she'd ever thought she'd be again. "You leave again," she said, "and we're done. We might be done already, we might be over before we even start and I'm making no promises about _that_."

Reagan's hand slipped into hers on her right and Lauren's on her left and Amy could feel Karma's eyes burning a hole into Jack's head and hell, if she'd known _he_ was all it took to get the three of them on the same page…

"But I _am_ promising you _this_ ," she said. "If you leave again, we're _over_ and we're _done_. I don't do _third_ chances."

That was Amy's one rule which, slowly, over the course of the next year or so, became _two_.

"Second rule," she told Jack over coffee one Wednesday, their usual 'talking' day. "You leave again? _We're_ done, but _Lucy?_ She stays." Amy glanced over at the counter where Lucy was talking to Karma who _was_ holding baby Emma (whose adorable tininess had _finally_ convinced Amy - and even Reagan and _almost_ Lauren - that she _wasn't_ the spawn of Satan) but _looked_ like she _wanted_ to be holding someone else and Amy had no idea what to do with _that_ but she'd deal. "You go? Fine," she said. "But I get _her_."

Jack nodded his agreement and Amy did her best to ignore the way he smiled as he did.

Eventually, even later that year, rules one and two were joined by a third, one that had already sorta been in place every Wednesday. "One hour," Amy said, as she sat across from him in Suzette's tiny office. "You get one hour a week, alone, you and me." She fidgeted in the cushy office chair. The AC was on and it was blowing right on her and yeah, _that_ was what was making her uncomfortable. "And by alone, I mean _with_ Suzette but without… chaperones."

So, in other words, without Reagan (who had fought this new rule for as long as Amy had been thinking about it) and without Lauren (who still, to this day, insists on driving Amy to every appointment but she waits in the car now) and _absolutely_ without Karma (who was officially banned from Suzette's building after the… incident… though, in her defense, how was she supposed to know that blood _stained_?)

Those are the rules and Jack has been a model citizen, following each to the letter, those and the unspoken others. No drinking, no drugs, no sticking his nose in her business, no going _near_ Farrah unless she comes to him and always always _always_ losing to Reagan in any argument.

(Amy pretty much follows that last one too.)

Amy will give him this much (and no more): he's never pushed. He's never demanded or expected more from her. He's always there, always on the edge, the periphery, seemingly content to mostly just _watch_ her life, grateful he gets even that. Jack has stuck to her rules _and_ their schedule and, for the last eight and a half years, he's gotten his one hour a week and never asked for - or _gotten_ \- even one minute longer.

Until, you know, _now_.

"I know we're kinda going overtime here," Jack says, stating the obvious with more than a touch of worry in his voice. "But I didn't plan for an accident, and I didn't plan for you to come along in the first place, and it should have only been fifteen minutes and then Lucy would have been here and we wouldn't have been alone and -"

"It's fine," Amy says, cutting him off and at least she knows where she and Lucy get _that_ from. "I can handle a little… overtime," she says, using his word, and surprising herself that she actually means it. "Besides," she says, "you know what Reagan always says about rules."

If you're not breaking _them_ , they're breaking _you_.

Jack nods, slowly, like he's not sure he trusts it (and when it comes to anything Reagan says that could _help_ him, Amy's not at all surprised at the doubt) and waves at the nice couple behind them as they let him slowly merge.

"Do me a favor?" he asks her as the car straightens out, the exit sign _that_ much closer. "Text your sister and tell _her_ that?" He hits the brakes again, their movement done for the moment and leans back in his seat. "She's freaking out a little. I guess the thought of you _and_ me _and_ a confined space… it's a bit of a… concern"

Amy has to chuckle at that, imagining Lucy pacing back and forth in baggage claim, wondering how long she should wait before she starts walking. She swipes her screen to life, noticing that there's still no reply from Reagan and what _exactly_ could she be doing that's taking _so long_ , she was with _Karma_. "What am I supposed to say?" she asks. "I gave dad an extension this week?" She laughs but then she freezes, the realization of what she said hitting her smack in the face.

_Dad_

"Something like that, probably, " Jack says and maybe he didn't notice (like _fuck_ he _didn't_ ) or maybe - more likely - he's just letting her little slip slide cause that's all it was, a slip of the tongue, an innocent mistake. That's the smart thing to do and, when it comes to her, Jack has made a habit of doing the smart thing. At least, you know, since he's been back.

But still… it's right there, hanging in the air. She never calls him dad, not to his face. Hell, she barely calls him 'Jack', like if she uses his name that somehow makes him real. But now she's said it and it's right there, and he _could_ jump on it, he could make it a big… _thing_ … he could read something into it that's just not there.

Old Jack would have, Amy thinks.

And then she thinks _again_ cause no, 'old' Jack wouldn't have cause 'old' Jack wouldn't have been there to hear it but 'new' Jack... _this_ Jack… he _is_ here and he _has_ been. He's here and he's steering the car he doesn't replace (cause better things to do with the money) and he's worrying about her sister (like a _good_ … _dad_ ) and he's _not_ making mountains out of molehills and, come to think of it - and Amy's tries _so_ hard not to - he's been doing (or not doing) all of that for a while.

Like ten _years_ of a while.

Amy looks over at him - as he studiously looks anywhere _but_ at her - and see, this… _this_ is why she doesn't do things like… _this_ … this is why she avoids being alone with him and this is why makes the conscious _choice_ to think of Bruce _first_ and this is why she limits him to an hour and this… _Goddammit_ … _this_ is why she has _rules_.

"It's OK," Jack says, softly, in that same voice he uses when he says 'I know' and 'I remember' and "I _did_ ' in counseling. "I know you didn't… it doesn't… it's not a big thing so you can stop freaking out about it over there, alright?"

The car is still and his hands… they're in his lap and his fingers are doing that flexing thing… _again_... like they're wrapping around a glass or a bottle and Amy's seen it a million times and a million times she's wondered if he even knows he's doing it.

"We'll be there soon," he says, nodding towards that sign that's like fifty feet away but it might as well be the fucking _moon_. "And then Lucy will be here and we'll all... It'll be better. I'll have my…" He reaches up and damn near _slams_ his hands onto the wheel and yeah, he _knows_ he does it. "She'll be telling us all about her flight and about Florida and that nice girl she's been seeing and you'll have you buffer and everything will be just… _fine_."

Fine. Right. Just… _fine_.

"She's seeing someone?" Amy asks cause, you know,skipping over the 'buffer' bit - and everything _else_ \- cause _avoidance_. And, actually, a little curiosity cause she didn't know there was anyone new in Lucy's life.

Jack nods with a tight little tiny smile. "Yeah," he says. "Some girl she met at a conference for work. Sammie or Sandy or Sabrina or something." One thing Amy has to say for him, he's never once been bothered - not in the least - by either of his girls _liking_ girls. "Lucy says that she reminds her of you but only in the 'funny and dorky and _way_ into film' way and totally _not_ in the 'oh that's weird that I've got the hots for Amy' kinda way."

Amy laughs and it's only _half_ forced, which is like a _thousand_ times better than usual around Jack, so… _progress_. "I didn't know she'd even met anyone," she says, trying to act like she's _not_ wracking her brain for the last time Lucy even _mentioned_ someone.

And then trying even harder to act like she's trying to remember the last time they even _talked_.

"She said she hadn't had a chance to tell you yet," Jack says and he really needs to stop doing the whole ESP bit, he's not _gay_. Traffic's moving again and he eases his foot off the brake and Amy's never been so grateful to not be sitting still anymore. "She figured you've just been really busy, you know, with the wedding and all."

Right. The wedding. And… _all_.

Amy stares straight ahead as that sign grows closer and closer and still not fucking _there_. The wedding _has_ been keeping her busy. You know, nodding as Lauren says what they're doing and smiling when Reagan agrees (and smiling more when she doesn't cause watching Lauren argue with someone who _isn't_ terrified of her is _awesome_ ) and being where she's told to be when she's told to be there and avoiding decisions about walking down the aisle like it's her _job_ is busy busy _busy_ work.

"I'm sure," Jack says, "you two will have plenty of time to catch up. Are you going out with her and Karma tonight after the rehearsal?"

Amy chokes - on fucking _air_ \- and doesn't even try to answer. Karma. Karma? _Karma_ (three times, she's going to fucking _appear_ isn't she?) has plans with Lucy? Tonight? _Already_? As in plans that couldn't have been made without, you know, _talking_? Or texting or emailing or tweeting or, you know, one of the billion _other_ ways people keep in touch with _other_ people, people who have moved away but that they still care about and want to still talk to and, you know, _miss_ and all.)

And… _all_.

"I'm a shit sister," Amy mutters, and she's not sure if she's more surprised that she feels it or that she _says_ it.

The car slows again (and the sign's fucking _Mars_ now, or so it seems) and Jack hazards a quick glance in her direction. "Why? Because you didn't know about her girlfriend?"

Didn't know… or didn't _care_ to?

Amy could have called. Amy could have emailed. Amy could have texted or Skyped or snapped or tweeted or sent a fucking carrier pigeon (or a raven, but that's just _creepy_ and she's not a fucking _Lannister_ ) or _something_. If it had been Lauren, if Lauren had moved to Gainesville… well… OK, Lauren wouldn't move to _Gainesville_ … but if Lauren had moved somewhere more… _Lauren_ … Amy _would have_ , she'd would've done a better job.

Or _any_ job.

She'd have _known_. About a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a conference or even what the _fuck_ Lucy's job is that she's going to _conferences_ and meeting _girls_ and she'd know, Amy would have an _idea_ what kind of girl this Sammie-Sandy-Sabrina girl _is_ cause she'd know what Lucy's type is (besides, _apparently_ , girls like her) (and, you know, girls _like_ Karma) ( _Karma_ ) and she woulda coulda shoulda known all that.

If she'd wanted to.

"I forgot about her," Amy says and it's sad but it's _true_. "About _us,_ about her and me and that there was a her and me. I spent so much time focusing on… this…" she waves her hand between her and Jack. "And Lucy was always there and Lucy was around and she was always… not good… that's not the right word." She pauses, thinking about it and trying _not_ to think about how much this makes her feel like Jack, trying to choose her words, trying to be so damn _precise_. "Lucy was _nice,"_ she finally says, even if that's hardly fucking adequate. "And she was so nice she never pushed and she never reminded me when I was forgetting her even though she _had_ to know and… _ugh_."

She sucks. She sucks as a sister, at least as _Lucy's_ sister and so the fuck _what_ if she never _meant_ or _wanted_ or _asked_ to be _her_ sister? She never asked for Lauren either cause, really, who the hell would _ask_ for _Lauren (_ at least _original_ version), but she got her anyway and she - _they_ \- made it work and Lord knows Lucy would have done ( _did_ , she fucking _did_ ) whatever was needed to be sisters, _real_ ones, not just two girls with the same unfortunate luck in DNA.

Amy leans her head against the glass and sighs. "I did OK when she was here, you know?" she says and it's true. She did _OK_ and where she might have… lacked… there was Karma. And there was Lauren and there was Reagan and Shane and they all took Lucy to heart and they all loved her like she'd been there all along and even for Amy it was "impossible to hate her," she says. "I wanted to. I _did_ , for a while. But even when I did, I just… _couldn't_ … cause she was so sweet and nice and so… _Lucy_ … and why would I… why would I hate _her_ anyway, right? None of it was _her_ fault."

Lucy never made Jack choose. _That_ was the truth and Amy _knew_ it, but she might have had an easier time _remembering_ it if every time she saw Jack those words - _because of you_ \- hadn't gone echoing their way through her mind, making her feel like maybe Lucy hadn't made him choose, but maybe _she_ had.

"It was hard," Jack says and there's absolutely no judgment in his voice. "It was hard enough for you to get a new… well… an _old_ father. But toss in an insta-sister, one you'd never known, one that… I'd… stayed for?" He glances her way again and Amy doesn't have to actually look to know the guilt is swallowing his eyes. "You did that once, with Bruce and Lauren, and I know it wasn't easy then either. And you had _no_ reason to hate _them_."

"You didn't know Lauren."

Jack can't argue. He also can't imagine a version of Lauren _more_ terrifying than this one.

"I've worked on us," Amy says, waving her hand again. "Cause we _needed_ the work. Lucy didn't need… and I mean, I _knew_ we'd have some shit to deal with… eventually. I just always assumed…"

She'd be there.

And she was. Right up until she wasn't.

"After the fire… I swore I'd do better," Amy says and a part of her wonders how many of them swore that same thing. They'd all lost that night and they'd all had reality walk right up and slap them in the face. "We almost lost her and…"

She feels Jack tense, feels it shimmering off him across the seat and onto that dirty fucking window and rolling over the headrests and into the back and filling the trunk. Yes, _they_ had almost lost her - if it hadn't been for Liam (and how many times has she said _that_ ) they _would_ have - but no matter how often she says 'they' or 'we' and no matter how much she means it, and she _does_ , Amy knows better.

_He_ almost lost her.

"I never said anything," Amy says, slowly, cause it's hard and it's weird and it's so _not_ what she does, _but_ … "I was… I don't know… proud sounds insulting but it's as close as I can come… I was proud of you," she says. "After the fire, I mean."

After we watched Martin and Liam leave us, she means. After we spent nights in the hospital with Jana and Lucy, after we thought the worst was over and she still almost…

"I was sure that was going to be it, you know?" Amy says and she feels like _shit_ for it, for feeling it and thinking it and for _saying_ it, for saying it _to him_. "That was going to be the push," she says, "that was going to be the _shove_ right off the wagon and right back to…"

She looks at him, maybe for the first time in a long time she _really_ looks at him. Jack stares straight ahead, watching the unmoving road and the unmoving cars and he's not shaking and his knuckles aren't white on the wheel and Amy thinks maybe - just _maybe_ \- she's a little late to the party here.

"But it wasn't," she says. "And I know… I know Lucy was OK and I know it all worked out, for _her_ and for Jana. And that was _every_ reason for you _not_ to fall but…" She shrugs. "I was still proud, and I wish… I wish I'd said it _then_."

And _that_ , she knows, is something _he_ understands.

* * *

"I've been seeing Suzette."

Jack's the one to break the silence, that fucking _lake_ of a thing that Amy could swear was drowning her even as that sign - her life raft of green metal - got closer and closer (but seemed farther and farther) and she swivels in her seat to look at him.

"You've been what now?"

"Seeing Suzette," Jack says _again_ (like that _helps_ ). "Professionally, I mean. Besides our appointments, I mean. An… extra one. Just me and her, once a week."

"An extra appointment?" Amy asks and Jack nods but _he_ doesn't look at _her_ and she _could_ convince herself - rather easily and without much effort, she _knows_ \- that he's just concentrating on the road, on making sure they don't end up in the trunk of the car in front of them and that he's _not_ worried how she's going to take it, that he's not doing the 'Raudenfeld': the silent until it's too fucking late inner freakout with a side of impending self-destruction.

She could. She _so_ could. It'd be an outright fucking _lie_ , but she _could_.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks even if she's got some pretty good ideas, all of which start with 'her' and end with 'judgey judgerson' and she can't really say that she blames him.

There's about a half dozen answers she might expect, only a couple she'd really buy (or _let_ herself buy.) He didn't want her to worry about him ( _his_ wishful thinking), he didn't want her to think it was a sign of something - a tumble from the wagon or a backslide on his behavior ( _her_ wishful thinking) - or he was worried about what the others (read: Reagan and Karma and Lauren and Farrah and _Reagan_ ) might think.

"Because it wasn't fair," Jack says, finally, and _that's_ one Amy didn't see coming _at all_ and it's one she understands even _less_.

The car bumps along, the movement a little more steady - if still just as slow - and Amy waits for something… _more_. An explanation or some details or a some filling in of the about a _thousand_ blanks she's drawing right now, blanks she _hates_ cause blanks mean questions and questions mean doubts and doubts mean - _maybe_ \- wrong and Amy hates hates _hates_ being wrong.

Especially about _him_.

"I started going to see her on my own," he says, "right after…" Jack twitches a little, cocking his head and rolling his neck, stumbling for the words again. "It was the day after we brought Lucy home from the hospital," he says. "The day between that and the funeral."

Amy remembers - some things you _don't_ forget - she even remembers the exact moment, the minute he _left_. "You talked to mom," she says. "The two of you in the kitchen and I thought you were going to start fighting but then she put her hand on your arm…" She pauses, everything coming so clear and how the _fuck_ had she missed _it_. "You told her," she says. "You told _mom_."

Jack nods. "It's no excuse," he says, "but seeing Lucy like that and almost losing…" he shakes his head and lets out a long slow breath. "I almost slipped," he says. "Maybe that wrecks your whole proud of me thing but… I almost drank. It was the first time in years I'd even _wanted_ to and you have no _idea_ how much I _wanted_."

"But you didn't."

"No," he says. "But I came close. Closer than I should have and so I told your mother cause I had to say something to someone and it wasn't going to be you." The car comes shuddering to another halt and Jack lets his hands fall from the wheel. "Your mother _can't_ think any _less_ of me. You might still have some room to go, so I told her and I asked her to stay with you and your sister so I could go see Suzette."

_He went to get Lucy's meds_ , Farrah told her. _And to get a little air and no, he's not_ leaving _and maybe just this once, you ought to cut him some slack. Just… this once._

"She defended you," Amy says and - finally - that makes a little more sense. "I always chalked it up to a parent thing but now…" She draws her legs up onto her seat, pulling her knees to her chest. "She understood or, at least, she tried to." Jack nods and Amy remembers - again, for the first time in a _long_ time - that once _upon_ a time, her mother loved him. "I still _don't,_ " she says. "I don't get _fair_."

"It…" Jack seems like he's struggling more than usual, like it's not just about the words, but just telling her _at all_. "Telling you I was going to see her… it would've been making it about me," he says and that's just about - not _about_ , it _is_ \- the most self-aware and _honest_ thing Amy's ever heard him say. "Lucy almost died and Martin _did_ and Liam…"

Jack drops his head and Amy doesn't say anything and she doesn't move even if a surprisingly large part of her wants to… reach out? A hand on the arm or a pat on the shoulder or a _how the fuck would she know_ cause they barely even _hug_ , like not even on holidays. But she knows, even without the look on his face, how much even _thinking_ about it _hurts_ and yes, Reagan lost her _father_ and Lucy was _OK_ and all _that_. But Jack and Liam were… _something_ … and Amy's learned enough from that night to never minimize or dismiss anyone's pain.

Not even if it's about _him_.

She knows her father and Liam were close. They had the art thing and the caring about Lucy thing and the fathers who didn't know what the _fuck_ they were doing thing. And, sometimes, she wonders how much of himself Jack saw in Liam, but then that makes her feel all sorts of… _ewwwww_ … and she stops wondering about it _right fucking then_.

"I know Liam did some dumb shit," Jack says and Amy resists the urge to comment on _that_ understatement cause, you know, not speaking ill of the dead and all. "But he saved your sister's life and then he lost his own cause he tried to save Martin's."

Amy stares into space, into the bit of nothing between Jack and the wheel, not that she _sees_ any of it, not that she sees anything much.

Not that she sees anything _but_ Liam.

For years - _so_ many of them - Amy couldn't see any him but the him at the party, the him attacking her sister, the him arguing with her in a janitor's closet, the him staring at Karma like, well, like _she_ stared at Karma. _That_ Liam was burned into her brain, _that_ Liam had etched himself into her memory like a scar, _that_ Liam was the fucking dick - the _other_ one - she could never forgive.

But now…

Now, _that_ Liam is still there - he _always_ will be - but he's more of a… shadow. An echo ringing out somewhere in the deep, behind that _other_ Liam, the guy with the fucked up family that he loved in spite of himself, the guy with the most adorable little tiny of a daughter that he gave up _everything_ for, the guy who held that baby in his arms and looked at _her_ like Amy can only hope she'll get to look at someone someday.

_That_ Liam pulled her sister from the flames and then ran _back_ , charged back in to save a man who was already dead just because he _could_. Because he _should_.

Because that's what a man - a _good_ one - would do.

_Did._

Sometimes, Amy wonders what _that_ guy would've become but then that just hurts too damn much so she stops that _too_.

"I was there," Jack says and Amy snaps back to the moment. "The night of the fire. I drove you there, remember?"

Amy nods. She remembers being at Suzette's when she'd gotten the call and, unlike this trip, Jack hadn't stopped or even slowed down once.

"I saw the look on your face," Jack says. "When _you_ saw the look on Reagan's, when they… told her."

He lets out three quick short breaths and Amy can hear - barely - him counting under them, and she knows it's what Suzette, or someone like her, taught him. How to cope, to manage, to _deal_ with the emotions and the panic and the… _everything_ … that sent him diving down that hole into a bottle in the first place.

"I felt… well… _bad_ doesn't even cover it," Jack says, slowly moving the car into the exit lane, that sign ever closer. "I knew what you two were going to have to face, but… and this is so fucking _pathetic_ … but I kept thinking…" He brakes again, too hard ( _again)_ , and the car gives a shake. "I kept playing that look over and over in my mind and all I could think was that _you_ wished it was _me_ , that I was the one there on the ground, that I was the one _gone_. That Martin was alive and I… _wasn't_."

Amy says nothing cause, really, what _could_ she say.

He was wrong. But only a little. It wasn't like it hadn't crossed her mind, like it hadn't wandered through her thoughts like a lost stray looking for a home.

It wasn't like Reagan hadn't yelled it a time or two (or more) in her grief and Amy hadn't argued, not even a little. But grief had had its moment and mourning had had its time and yeah, they'd always feel the loss - see: this morning and her stupidity - but Martin _is_ gone.

And Jack isn't. Not anymore.

"You remember Sluggo?"

He turns to her and Amy doesn't need to look to see / feel / sense / _know_ the confusion all over his face. "Your _turtle_?"

She nods, a tiny smile crossing her face. "I was what, five?" she asks, already knowing the answer. "I wanted a pet so bad, I'd been begging you and mom for _weeks_."

" _Months_ ," Jack corrects and Amy smiles a little more, grateful that he still knows her well enough to give her some rope on this. "Ever since the Ashcrofts got that damn bird."

"Oh, _Patsy_ ," Amy says, embarrassingly close to a squeal. "I'd forgotten her," she says, though how anyone could forget _Patsy_ … "Karma tried so damn hard to get her to say 'Patsy wanna cracker'."

"She was a _parakeet_ , not a parrot," Jack mutters. Like that mattered even a _little_. "You took one look at that bird and all you wanted was a pet."

"All I wanted was a _dog_ ," Amy corrects and no, she's still got no idea how she made the leap from parakeet to pooch, but the mind of a five year old is not to be trifled with. "But _someone_ had to be allergic."

Jack snorts. "Sorry," he says. "We offered to get you a cat." But Amy hated ( _hates_ ) cats and she made _no_ secret of _that_. "I can still hear you," Jack says and he knows he shouldn't and he _really_ shouldn't smirk _while_ , but… "running from room to room, yelling 'no pussy, no pussy' at the top of your lungs."

Amy glares at him for a moment, her eyes flashing, but it's all a show, nothing but the expected act and she can't hold it, she can't make it work cause _God_ , the _irony_ , it's just _too much_ and finally… "Well," she says, "guess I got over _that_."

Jack stares at her and she stares right back and neither of them _wants_ to cause, you know, deep and meaningful talk and never quite healed fractures just under the surface and dead friends and lost fathers but… _fuck…._

'No pussy! _No pussy!'_

It's like they're on a timer, counting it down and they both try to hold it, to make it to the end, until the moment passes, but Amy snorts and then Jack titters and then… well… _it's on_.

They both break and they both crack and they both laugh till they cry and Amy leans against the dirty window with shaking shoulders and every time she thinks she's done, another round rolls out of her and she just can't _make it stop_ and Jack has to rest his head against the top of the wheel, gasping for air until the horns of the cars behind them drown their laughs and their tears and he slides the car into drive, moving another ten feet along.

But somehow it feels like a little more.

"We compromised," he says, waving a hand (and using _all_ the fingers) at the people behind them. "No dog and no cat. And no fish because, as I recall, fishes were _dumb_."

" _Stupid_ ," Amy says and yes, they were ( _are_ ) cause, really, how bright do you have to be to have more than a three minute memory? "And compromise? That was just _code_ for you and mom lying to me and telling me how great turtles were."

Turtles were great and turtles were awesome and all the cool kids (like Amy knew _any_ of _them_ ) were getting turtles and didn't Amy want a turtle too?

She didn't, not really, but she liked the way Farrah's lips curled every time she said the word, like 'turtle' tasted like kale and Farrah _hated_ kale (and really, who _doesn't_?) and she liked the way seeing her mother like _that_ made Jack (and her) smile, like they were in on it _together_ and _that_ settled it.

A turtle it was.

"You know why I said 'yes' to the turtle, right?" she asks and Jack nods.

"Because you thought that you and Karma cold secretly train it to be a ninja," he says. "But then she saw Sluggo and her eyes… oh _my_ … I didn't know eyes could do _that_ and then the way she ran from the room…" He tries not to smile but it's a losing fight. "Your mother was so proud of me for not laughing."

Amy arches an eyebrow.

"OK," Jack says. "For not laughing _much_."

She'll give him _that_.

"Sluggo only made it about six months," Amy says and, really, that he made it _that_ long was nothing short of a miracle cause five year old her had ( _maybe_ ) the attention span of _fifteen_ year old _Karma_. "I think I forgot to feed him after like the first week," she says. "But he was a tough little bastard."

It runs in the family.

"Mom was the one to tell me," she says, her voice dipping into the empty where the laughter was, but it's gone now, though she thinks maybe it was… _needed_ … and maybe this is too, maybe even more so. "She said Sluggo was gone, that he'd gone somewhere better for a turtle."

Somewhere with lots of water, Farrah said. Water and leaves and mud, cause Sluggo _loved_ mud, and other turtles to play with, friends to hang with and just be all… turtley all day and all night.

"I believed her," Amy says cause _of course_ she did. She was _five_. "I didn't _understand_ but I wasn't supposed to. But none of _that_ really mattered cause Sluggo was happy and he was where he was supposed to be." She watches out at the window, the sign so close she can almost touch it. "I pretty much forgot about it after a few days cause, you know, Sluggo was… _gone_."

Out of sight, out of mind. And heart.

Jack leans an elbow on the window-edge, his head on his hand because he thinks he knows where this is going, and he's not _entirely_ wrong.

"Mom told me the same thing, minus the mud, when you left," Amy says and yeah, that was pretty much what Jack thought. "You were gone, you were where you were supposed to be which I didn't get cause you were supposed to be _with me_ , but mom said you were happier and you were… with your kind… and you weren't coming back."

She wraps her arms around herself, hands rubbing against arms and she's not sure she's ever missed Reagan quite this much.

"For years," Amy says, "once I was old enough to understand…" She trails off cause that's not _right_ cause, no, she's never been _that_ old. "Once I got what mom had done," she corrects, "I spent so long thinking that _gone_ meant _dead_ and then one night I heard her and Nana talking and _that_ was when I _really_ got it."

There was a difference. Jack wasn't Sluggo. Gone wasn't dead.

Not literally, at least.

Her eyes drift and Amy tries, she tries so very hard not to look, not to look _there_ , not _at him_ cause she knows… she knows that it doesn't matter how long it's been and she knows it doesn't matter how bad he feels and it _so_ doesn't matter _why_ and it _never fucking did_.

Amy doesn't want to look because looking gets her nowhere, nowhere but right back here, right back where she's always been. No matter what, she's never going to see _it_ , she's never going to see what she wants, what she needs.

She'll never see the man with that smile, she'll never see the man she was _in on it_ with, she'll never see the man who held her so close and so tight when those damn candles just wouldn't blow out.

That man's gone. And yeah, gone _does_ mean _dead_.

Jack says nothing. He doesn't try for an explanation or an excuse and no, it's not _just_ because he's already given her every one of those he's got. He doesn't try because he _won't_ , he won't cheapen her pain, he won't try to take it from her cause it's _hers_ and she's _earned_ it and _he's_ earned every bit of the way it tears and it rips and it _shreds_ him inside that _he_ did _that_.

"I was thirteen," Amy says cause, apparently, this is just one long slow car ride down Memory Ave (when a Lane just won't _do_.) "Our school had a daddy-daughter Valentine's dance and yes, it was just about as creepy as it sounds."

It fell in a year when there was no step, when Farrah was on her 'manbbatical' (number three of four) and so there was no one to take Amy, not until Lucas stepped up, offering to take her _and_ Karma.

"I thanked him but no thanked him," Amy says. "I just… I _couldn't_. See, by then, I _really_ understood, I got that you were gone but that gone wasn't like Sluggo. Gone didn't mean Heaven, gone meant… out there… _somewhere_." She lets out a long breath. "Somewhere better for _you_."

Somewhere better and maybe with a better _girl_ , maybe one who hadn't done whatever Amy did, one that maybe had a dance of her own and maybe her own perfect red dress to wear and maybe _hers_ didn't stay in her closet, just hanging like a memory she'd never made, right up until she hit a growth spurt and sprouted up and it just wouldn't… _fit_ … anymore.

"That was the time," she says softly but without anger or hate or… _anything_. "That was the _first_ time and the _only_ time I ever wished… I wished that you weren't _just_ gone."

Jack shifts the car back into park and glances out the windshield. The sign's there now, _right there_ , pointing the way, but he can't move, he just _can't_.

"I didn't wish it that night," Amy says, "when Martin… I _didn't_. I knew before him and I sure as hell knew _then_ … gone is gone but dead…"

Dead is dead.

"Still," Jack says, his voice cracking and he doesn't _want_ a drink but he can't remember ever wishing so hard that he didn't _remember_ the taste of it, the feel of it, the _ease_ of it as it burned it's way down his throat and how quickly it would make it all… _gone_. "I wouldn't blame you if you had -"

" _I_ would," Amy says and then… there it is… her hand on his, on the wheel and she doesn't know how it happened or when and she knows she should move it, she _really_ should cause she's _so_ not ready but then, when it comes to Jack, she knows she never really has been. "I would blame me," she says, "because it'd be selfish and it'd be cruel and, most of all, it wouldn't be the _truth_."

She turns in her seat to face him, her hand never once letting go.

"Maybe I'm too stubborn for my own good," she says, like _that's_ a shock. "I hang on too long and too tight and sometimes, like Reagan, that's _good_. And others…"

Karma. Liam. Her secret and her feelings and her love and her hate.

Not always so good.

"I miss Martin every day," Amy says and she truly does and not _just_ for Reagan. "And I would give anything… _almost_ anything to have him back. But not…" She trails off, using her free hand to swipe at her eyes - fucking _tears_ \- as she holds onto his for dear life, like he's the last thing keeping her from sinking below the surface, never to find the air again.

"Amy -"

She shakes her head and Jack shuts up cause he gets it, he understands that she needs to do this -whatever this _is_ \- she needs to _finish_. "Not… not _you_ ," she says and it's like the cork comes rocketing out of the bottle and everything else just… _follows_.

"Maybe you're a bastard," Amy says, "and maybe you're gonna fuck up again and maybe _I'm_ just too fucking Luke screaming in my head that there's still good in you and maybe you're gonna turn out so much more Vader and so much less Anakin and maybe I but… _Goddammit_ … you're _my father_." Jack tries to breathe but it's hard, so very very _very_ hard. "And you're _here_ and yeah, you left, but you _came back_ ," Amy says, "And I don't know what the hell that counts for but it has to… it fucking _has to_ count for _something_."

A horn honks behind them, one and then another and then another still. Amy turns back in her seat, facing out her window again and Jack can't see her face as she drops his ( _their_ ) hand(s) from the wheel to the stick and shifts back into drive. His foot slips from the brake and onto the gas and that signs fades into the distance _behind_ them as the traffic in _front_ of them thins and spaces out and he eases them into it, no more stops along the way.

They're moving again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I went to proofread and tweak this one, I added a little.  And then a little more.  And then a bit more.  And it got kinda long (just kinda) but hopefully it's worth it.  It was kinda draining and a little hard and a lot... me... so if you like, let me know, OK?  And if you haven't noticed it yet, I've got a new (and probably my last) Reamy story going, called Her Latest Flame. I've got that one done, so it'll definitely finish, but check it out if you feel the urge.  


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I once wrote a chapter that was mostly Karma and Reagan alone together. Consider this the sequel, with a little Shane added in. And fewer nasty insults thrown Karma's way. And a bit more explanation of Liam's daughter and his death and some more hints at Karma's possible bisexuality and so, yeah, not really a sequel at all :)

_You and Shane are having a kid. Anything's possible_.

Karma stands there, dumbfounded and, for the first time in her life, she understands that word, especially the _dumb_ part - because that's how she _feels_ , totes stupid and totes lost and totes incapable of even basic speech (hence, _totes_ ) - watching Reagan as Reagan watches her with that same bemused little smirk and those words, all _three_ of them, still echoing.

_You. Shane. Kid._

Karma clutches a hand to her stomach and oh, she's gonna be _sick_ and it's not like that's anything new, at least not _lately_ , but this… well… _this_ is less morning sickness - a term Karma has learned is a complete fucking _lie_ cause it comes _any_ damn time it _wants_ and she's had sickness before and _this_ makes _that_ look like a Goddamned _sneeze_ \- and this is even _more_ , much much _much_ more, less sickness and _all_ oh, oh, _oh fuck_ -ness.

And there's those words, swimming in the swirling lake of her brain.

_You. Shane. Kid._

_God_ , it sounds so much… _worse_ (crazier) (nuttier) ( _insaner_ ) when it's someone _else_ saying it.

She leans against the table, squeezing her eyes shut - the room spins less that way, at least a little bit - and tries to breathe. It's not easy and breathing is _supposed_ to be easy, right? It's _supposed_ to be involuntary, like you're not supposed to have to _choose_ to breathe or _remind_ yourself to do it, but Karma has to actually _think_ the word - 'breathe' - with every inhale and then again on the way out, saying it over and over and _over_ again.

And she's not the only one.

"Breathe, Karma. Slow and steady. In through your nose and out through your mouth."

She focuses - as best she can - on the voice, so slow and husky and it almost reverberates along her skin, like a gentle caress, and on the the directions and on _following_ them. In and out, slow and steady, nose and mouth. Karma feels a steady hand rest on her shoulder - it can't be hers cause it's not _shaking_ \- and she lets herself be steered slowly down into a chair, her own hands finding and clutching to its arms for dear fucking life.

"I'm going to be right back," Reagan says and Karma's with it enough now that she's able to recognize the voice. "I'm just gonna get you some water, OK?" She nods, sort of. There's a fog that settles in on her after one of these and it blurs everything just enough that she can't always tell the difference between what she thinks she's doing and what she actually is.

A moment later, Reagan's back and there's a cool glass in Karma's hand. Reagan helps her guide it to her lips, releasing only when she's sure Karma's got it, that she can handle it on her own.

 _She's_ sure. Karma? Not so much.

Karma sips from the glass, letting the cold of the water flood through her, her wayward mind conjuring up visions of the liquid seeping through every bit of her, riding along on her blood and soothing every raw nerve - which is like _all_ of them - as it passes by. "Thank you," she says, softly, coughing just a smidge on the 'you'.

Reagan pats her on the back, like a tiny child, and says "I'm sorry." Karma manages to pop one eye open - the room is just _circling_ now, a little less violent than the spin - and she finds that Amy's wife-to-be looks positively _stricken_ , all wringing hands and furrowed brow and chewing bottom lip. "I wasn't _trying_ to upset you," Reagan says. " _Really_. I was just… I really only wanted to…" She sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "I don't know what I _just_ or what I really only _wanted_ ," she says. "It just seemed like we were having a moment, you know? And I knew you'd be surprised that I knew and I…" She shrugs and smiles ruefully. "Surprise!"

Karma closes her eye and presses the glass against her forehead, trying to breathe in time with the small drops of water she feels rolling across her skin.

"It wasn't that you knew," she says, her voice still a little cloudy, or maybe it just sounds that way to _her_. "Well… it wasn't _just_ that you knew."

It was those three words and it was those three words being said _out loud_ , out loud by someone who wasn't a doctor squirting jelly on her belly and showing them grainy black and whites of this thing that was going to change her life - that already _had_ \- but she still couldn't _see_ it, no matter how hard she tried and no matter how many times Shane pointed _right at it_.

At _her_. It was going to be a girl. Karma was sure of _that_ , mostly cause it _had_ be cause God help her if she had a Harvey _boy_ and he turned out to be just like his father. Or, even worse?

Straight.

She turns a little - slowly and cautiously, pausing almost imperceptibly as she does, waiting for the flickers of nausea to pass - so she can face Reagan. "How _do_ you know?"

There's a moment - the tiniest of ones - where something flashes across Reagan's face and if Karma were fully with it, she'd probably have seen it, she'd probably have recognized it, she'd probably know that every word Reagan's about to say is, at least partly, a lie.

Or, more accurately, not the whole truth and who says Reagan hasn't learned anything from Amy?

"Not everyone is as oblivious as you or my wife," Reagan says and Karma doesn't correct her on the tiny slip, it's less than a day away after all. (Also, _that's_ not a lie, not even a _little_.) "There have been signs," she says. "If you were paying attention."

Karma leans back against the chair, holding in a groan as a wave of 'oh fuck I'm gonna _die_ ' rolls through her. "Signs?"

"Yeah," Reagan says, reaching over and grabbing a few napkins off the table, dabbing them against Karma's forehead. "Like at Amy's bridal brunch, you skipped the champagne."

That she did. "And, as I recall," Karma says pausing to take a sip from her glass, "that just left more for Farrah."

And _that_ it _did_ too. Much more. Much much _too fucking much_ cause: 'my baby is getting married and I never thought this day would come and I know, I just _know_ it'll work so much _better_ for you than it did for me and thank _God_ you're gay cause men are _idiots_.'

Reagan laughs and nods. "I think she's _still_ apologizing to Bruce for that, " she says and yes, Bruce, yes, Jack? _No_. "So there was that," Reagan says, "and then there were the like two dozen times you've had the twenty-four hour stomach bug in the last couple months _and_ the way you've been extra high strung and emotionally out of whack - even for _you_ \- the last few weeks…"

"Hey!" Karma tries to protest (slightly less vocally than she might usually) but Reagan just arches a brow and _yeah…_ "OK. I have been a little… _extra_ , lately. It's the hormones or, maybe, it's just genetics cause Harvey plus Ashcroft DNA…" She tips her head back and runs the cool edge of the glass along her throat. "I cried the other day watching _House Hunters_ ," she says, shaking her head. "It took Shane an hour to calm me down."

It might have been _two._

Or, you know, _three_. Plus ice cream. Plus a burrito bowl from Chipotle and they forgot the extra sour cream so Shane had to go back - it was a burrito _that_ time, _fuck_ the _bowl_ \- and _that_ plus a foot rub _and_ a _Wizards of Waverly Place_ marathon on Netflix (Karma was a sucker for Mason the werewolf) seemed to do the trick.

"He's been good to you," Reagan says and it's not a question but Karma nods anyway. Shane _has_ been good to her, even better than she could have hoped for way back when, right around the time she said 'so how do you feel about kids' and followed that up with 'how do you feel about _me_ ' and then, like _half a second_ later went with 'how do you feel about kids _and_ me _and_ you, like, _our_ kids, like just one, you know, for starters' and then….

And then… _wait_. Just… _wait_. Wait just _one fucking minute_.

Karma sits straight up in the chair - a move she regrets even before she's done with it - nearly dropping her glass in the process. "Wait," she says. "You said Shane and I are having a kid."

Well… _duh._

"You are, aren't you?" Reagan asks, acting all innocent and clueless and nope, nothing to see here, move it along.

"Yes," Karma says. " _We_ are. But all your little clues… they were all about _me_." She leans over the arm of the chair, squelching another groan. "How do you know about _Shane_?"

Reagan bites her lip and then manages another smile, one with maybe (not _maybe_ ) just a touch more fear behind it. "Um, well, he… kinda… might have told me, like, maybe, um…"

She coughs something, something that Karma _thinks_ she heard but she knows that _can't_ be right, she _can't_ have said _that_.

"He _what_?"

Reagan hangs her head, knowing her jig is well and fully up. "He kinda told me," she says, again. "Like… a year ago." She smiles again, _all_ fucking fear. "Surprise?"

* * *

_One Year Ago_

"It's insane, right?"

Shane paces across the living room - for about the _thousandth_ time and no wonder he's got such good calves - and Reagan's _so_ glad she made him take off his shoes or they'd probably have no carpet left. "I mean, be honest," he says ( _begs)_ (it's _so_ a beg.) "It's like the craziest idea of all time, right? I mean, me and _Karma_. And a _baby_?

Oh, that's the _crazy_ , alright. But what's even crazier?

"I don't know," Reagan says, actually _thinking about it_. "It's not _that_ nuts."

OK. It _is_ that nuts. It's like last season of the show and there's no time to introduce new love interests but they're main characters (it's an _ensemble_ , you know) and they've gotta have something to do and a baby would just be… _epic_ … crazy.

But still...

"But," Reagan says, backtracking just slightly at the sight of Shane's eyes - wide enough that she's worried they're gonna touch his ears and then maybe look _inside_ and yeah, maybe she shouldn't have had that third beer while he was pacing - "I _like_ crazy," she says, "so maybe I'm not the person you should be asking?"

And if she'd only thought of _that_ excuse when he knocked on the door. And then rang the bell. And then texted her over and over and _over_ (' _I know you're in there_ ') until she finally let him in.

Shane pauses in mid-pace, _literally_ , like with one foot hanging in the air. "And who _else_ am I supposed to ask?" he says. "Lauren? She'd tell Amy before I was even done talking. Oh, _that's_ it, I'll talk to _Amy_." The foot hits the floor and he turns to face her. "Hey, Aimes? Yeah, I'm thinking of giving Karma my sperm - no, not like _that_ \- so we can have a baby even though I'm _completely_ gay and she's probably still half hung up on your sister _and_ she's still sorta seeing that douche from Squirkle."

No, not _that_ douche. He's _dead_.

OK, so maybe Shane's got a point. A little one, at least.

Reagan slips off the couch and heads for the kitchen. She's got the feeling this might take a while and a while of _anything_ Shane - much less Shane plus Karma plus… _sperm_ \- requires more beer ( _a lot_ more) than she's already had.

"What I still don't understand," she says (you know, besides _all of it_ ) her voice echoing off the insides of the fridge as she grabs the beers (two for her, one for him.) "Is how, _exactly_ , the idea even came up." She walks back into the living room, handing Shane his drink even as he holds his phone out to her. "What's this?"

"That," he says, nodding at the screen as he cracks open the beer. "Is how this came up."

Reagan settles back onto the couch and looks down at the phone and… _oh_. Well… yeah. _That_ explains it. That explains it _all_.

"Emma's gotten big," she says, staring down at the still tiny face on the screen. She doesn't actually know if Emma's any bigger but that's what you say, right? That's what _people_ say about other people's kids, not that Emma is… was… _is_ (she's gone, not _dead_ ) Shane's kid but… well… she's close enough.

The face staring back at her, Reagan would expect it to remind her of Liam and, it - _she_ \- _does_ , because she _is_ his kid, and the last real reminder of the guy Liam was trying to be, but she doesn't have his looks. Emma has, Reagan imagines, her mother's eyes and nose and lips and her hair… it's long and it's blonde and _nothing_ like Liam's and it actually kinda reminds Reagan of Amy's, like when she doesn't mess with it and it does that bouncy little curly waves thing.

And yeah, Liam's kid looking like _Amy_ , that train of thought needs to derail like right fucking _now_.

Reagan hands Shane back the phone - trying, and pretty much _failing_ to not let it show just how much she _has_ to - and opens her beer, taking a long pull before she speaks. "When did you… how…" Hair. She can't stop thinking about _hair_. "You actually _saw_ her?"

Shane shakes his head, his eyes still hovering on the screen. "No," he says and even that one word is brimming with years of pain. "She's still in Seattle with… _them_."

She's not _sure_ , but Reagan's willing to bet that if she asked Amy and Karma and Lauren and maybe even Glenn (who's been around an awful lot lately, _especially_ with Lolo) not a one of them would have heard Shane use the name 'Booker' in years. Not since Mr. and Mrs. Booker _and_ their army of lawyers _and_ their threats of bankrupting every last one of them _and_ their claims of anger and hatred for the people who 'killed our son' got sole custody of Emma.

Not since Shane and Karma had to watch the little girl they'd helped raised drive out of sight in the back of a Squirkle limo with people she'd never met, people she didn't know, people her _father_ had spent his whole life keeping her from.

But Liam was dead. And the dead… well they don't really get a vote.

"Robin," Shane says softly and Reagan _is_ sure that's the first time she's heard him mention Liam's mother - his _actual_ mother - in _forever_. "She sends pictures sometimes, the occasional video." He stares down at the screen, his thumb ghosting over it. "Emma discovered Snapchat and sometimes…" He smiles and frowns and makes this face Reagan can't read and she guesses he probably couldn't either. "Sometimes Robin sends me snaps, always with the most ridiculous filters and Emma making all these silly faces and…"

 _And_ he shoves his phone back in his pocket, rushing and fumbling and he has to try for it twice as he swipes a hand across his eyes, hoping Reagan doesn't notice. She does, of course, but she doesn't mention it.

It's embarrassing, she knows, letting the world - or even just her - see that pain, but those fucking tears… they've got no shame.

"Sounds like at least one Booker's on your side," she says, sipping her beer and trying to give him a moment.

Shane nods. "If it were up to Robin, she and Emma would live here and we… me and Karma… we'd still get to be parts of her life." He drops down on to the other end of the couch with a heavy sigh and it strikes Reagan that Emma's gotten _big_ but Shane's gotten _old_. "At least as more than absentee Godparents who send birthday and Christmas cards we're not even sure she actually gets, though Robin swears she _tries_."

Reagan usually reserves the word 'hate' for only the most deserving of people. Homophobes and bigots. Abusive parents and spouses. Dallas Cowboy fans. But she can honestly say that she _hates_ the Bookers. All of them.

Except maybe the one. But it's a little late to not hate _him_.

"If her father ever found out that Robin's still in touch with me, even just this much…" Shane shudders a little, whether out of anger or fear, Reagan can't really tell. "She sends everything to me and I send it to Karma and we got that one a few weeks ago and you're right, she _is_ bigger, _so_ much bigger and it's like she's this whole other person now."

He leans back against the couch and clenches his hands around his beer, his grip so strong Reagan's afraid he's gonna bust the glass.

"We've missed so much," he says, his voice thick with tears his pride won't let him cry. "And it isn't like Karma thinks a baby would make it all better, she's not trying to replace Emma."

Yeah, Reagan thinks, she kinda _is_. But that's not the worst thing in the world. Maybe. Or maybe it _is_ and Reagan's just thinking of what she'd give to… fill… that blank space in her life and so she's a little biased.

Maybe.

Shane stands again, pacing some more. "But we've got all this love and nowhere to put it and it isn't like… well…" He shrugs and shakes his head. "It's not like either of us is probably going to have kids the old fashioned way, you know?"

There's a mental picture that runs through Reagan's mind and she shoves _that_ back down _so_ fast. But he's got a point ( _another_ one.) If he ever settles down, natural childbirth isn't exactly a possibility. And yeah, Karma's sort of seeing that douche, but he's a time killer, a space filler, a momentary lapse in judgment who'll be gone within the month and they all know it.

She jokes about being single forever, she makes quips about how maybe she's just _too_ special a snowflake and there will never be a match for her, she laughs off the occasional 'old maid' comment (usually from Reagan) ( _always_ when drunk) but the truth?

Karma lost the love of her life. And she's not the kind to come back from that cause coming back means settling for second best and second best?

That's just not _best_.

"I didn't know I could love like that," Shane says and Reagan snaps back to the moment at hand. "I didn't think I had it in me. Before Emma I was…"

"Selfish, self-centered, interested in a guy for about ten minutes at a time, a total drama whore, and incapable of giving yourself unconditionally to another human being?"

He turns to her, one brow cocked (pun _totally_ intended.) "I was _going_ to say 'a bit of a jerk' but… yeah… _that_." He stalks back to the couch, falling down onto the edge. "Am I crazy?" he asks her. "Am I nuts to _want_ this, to think that even if it _is_ insane that maybe it's a _good_ insane?"

He _is_ nuts, Reagan's known that for years. But she knows that's not what he's asking. The trouble is, she's not sure - like even a little - what to say to him. This is _Shane_ and this is _Karma_ and this is a _kid_ , a _baby_ , a _life_.

"I miss her so much," Shane says and Reagan can _hear_ it, the pain, the loss, it's all there, in his every word and oh… she _knows_ that sound. "I thought it would get easier, like every day would make it a little better, but I still _feel_ it every day," he says. "Just like _that_ day, like I'm watching her drive away and there's this fucking gaping hole in me and no matter what I do, no matter who I'm with, it never even _starts_ to fill, you know?"

Yeah. Reagan's got an idea.

She doesn't say anything for a long (feels like a _year_ long) minute and that makes Shane look over at her and oh… _shit_ … it hits him, it smacks him right upside his perfectly coiffed head and he curses under his breath. "I'm sorry," he says, dropping a hand onto her knee. "I didn't mean… I wasn't thinking… _of_ course you know and I wasn't trying to compare. I know that even if Emma isn't _here_ , she's still here and I didn't -"

"Shane."

He stops cold, but he can't quite bring himself to look at her which is good. Guilt looks _horrible_ on Shane.

"It's OK," Reagan says. "I know how much you loved her and your loss…" She shakes her head, wondering if maybe, someday, any of _this_ will actually get any _easier_. "Loss is loss," she says and she means it. She's never going to try and equate it or balance it or try to minimize someone else's pain to embellish her own. "I lost something that day and so did you and then you lost more _because_ of it and that just… _sucks_."

Like _that_ even _starts_ to cover it.

Sometimes, when she lets herself, Reagan thinks that maybe _that's_ the worst of it. Martin died in the fire and Liam died trying to save him from it and that selfless act… the Bookers used it not to praise their…she can't say _son_ … _Liam_ … but to punish the rest of them, up to and including the tiny child they swore so loudly and so often that they were trying to protect.

Loss is loss. And sometimes? The losing never really ends.

Reagan stands up, crossing the tiny living room. She and Amy have poured every cent they have into the wedding and the rebuild at Planter's and while they're not hurting, a house still has to wait, but they've made even their modest accommodations into a home. She moves to the shelf along the far wall, the one Martin helped her hang when they first moved in, smiling to herself at the memory as she scoops a picture up and brings it back to Shane.

She holds it out and he takes it, looking down at _all_ of them and all their smiling (and so much _younger)_ faces.

"You remember that day?" she asks and Shane nods.

"That was the day you bought Planter's," he says. "Also, the day you proposed." He smiles at the way the two of them are huddled so close in the shot. "You hadn't even told the rest of us yet," he says, "but we were all waiting for it and, yet, Karma and Lauren both _somehow_ managed to miss the fucking rock on her hand."

That picture's stayed. Through two apartments and an earthquake and at least a dozen fights with Amy and a bunch of parties and moments when they could have taken a new one, when they could have… moved on.

But they… _she_ … never has.

Shane stares down at the picture, like if he looks hard enough it'll pull a Potter and they'll all start moving and talking and laughing. It was the last time, he thinks, the last time all of them were together like that. Amy and Reagan in the middle, the glue, the thing that bound them all together, these pieces that _shouldn't_ fit. Lauren and Glenn on either side of them, Lucy right behind Lauren and he almost laughs at the way Glenn's staring at Lauren and he wonders how no one else has seen it yet. But then he sees Martin, right behind his son, and Shane sees the way _he's_ looking at Glenn and maybe, he figures, someone _did_ see it. Maybe even before Glenn did.

And then there's them.

Him. And Liam and Karma and Emma. "He didn't want to be in the picture," Shane says. "He kept trying to hand Emma off to me or Karma, like…"

Like he didn't belong.

Shane blinks back tears, barely, and looks up at her. "Amy was the one," he says. "She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him in. She _made_ him stand there, between us."

 _You're in the picture and if you don't stop spewing all this bullshit about not being in the picture I'm going to punch you again and then you're_ still _going to be in the picture but you'll be explaining for years and years to everyone who asks why you look like someone busted your nose._

_Again._

"I know," Reagan says. She remembers arguing with Amy - though not that _much_ \- about it, about insisting he join them. "I figured if he didn't _want_ to be in…"

"He did," Shane says softly. His eyes trace the smile on his best friend's face. "It meant everything to him."

Reagan nods. "I was never his biggest fan," she says, "even if we did sort of make our peace and all." She reaches down and taps the picture, her finger brushing over Emma's tiny tiny face, cradled in her father's arms. "But the Liam I did like? The guy I let pose in this picture, this picture of my _family_?" She kneels down in front of Shane, taking his hand in hers. "Everything I liked about _that_ guy was in that little girl. And in you and in Karma."

Shane gives up on the blinking and the pride and _fuck all_ , the tears flow.

"I can't imagine what it must have felt like when the Bookers took her," Reagan says. A bit powerless, probably, hopeless most likely. Broken… _definitely_. "And I know all the legal shit, I know they were next of kin and you and Karma didn't have any claim on her like _that_."

DNA and the law and bottomless resources. A combo shot even love can't defend against.

Reagan squeezes Shane's hand, clearing her throat. "But I also know that no one, not Robin or the Bookers or even Liam… no one loved that little girl like you two did." She brushes a hand across the picture again, over all of them. "This was all _my_ family," she says before swirling one finger around Karma and Shane and Emma. "And _this_ was _yours_."

A family. Shane never, well, he never even imagined having one of those. Hell, he didn't know he even _wanted_ one. And now, some days? He feels like he might die without it.

"And yeah, it _is_ crazy," Reagan says, "cause you're gay, Karma doesn't know what she is and either of you could meet someone tomorrow and fall in love." She shrugs. "And you're never gonna get married - not to each other, anyway - and you will _never_ be a traditional family."

She takes one last look at the picture, forcing herself _not_ to look at her father.

"But then," she says, "neither were we."

* * *

"It was you."

Karma's hand rests on her stomach, though the nausea has mostly passed. She scoots forward in her chair, tugging it with her, turning to bring herself closer to Reagan, who's leaning back in her own chair, staring at the floor and barely resisting the urge to run for the door cause she knows Karma's gonna make this into a… _thing_.

"You were the _one_ ," Karma says, and yup - it's a _thing_. There's disbelief in her voice, the kind that comes with finding out a secret, one you thought you'd _never_ know. But there's more, something beyond that, a sense of… well… of 'duh', of 'how did I miss _that_ ', of 'well, _of course_ it was _you_ '. "I always wondered," she says, "I never knew what convinced him to say yes."

She reaches out with the hand not still pressed to her belly and takes Reagan's hand in hers and there's a flicker of a moment, a shard of a memory that spikes between them, of a time when _that_ would have never even come _close_ to happening.

But that was then. And yes, this is _now_ but she's _still_ Karma and _she's_ still Reagan and if Amy were here, her head (and/or heart) might just explode.

"Thank you," Karma says and, as close as she and Reagan have gotten over the years and as much as they really are friends now, those two words might still be the most _genuine_ Karma's ever said to her.

"I didn't…" Reagan tries to find the words but Karma's holding her hand and touching her belly and there's a kid _in there_ and everything's suddenly frighteningly… _real_. "I didn't convince him of anything," she says. "Shane knew what he wanted, he'd made up his mind. He wouldn't have said anything to _anyone_ if he hadn't."

"But still…" Karma doesn't know what to say, she doesn't know what to feel, it's like the moment's just sprung up around her and she wasn't ready and she wasn't prepared and she thought she'd have more time. Like at least until her toast at the reception and then she could have covered with lots of tears and lots more jokes about Amy. "Thank you," she says again and not _just_ because it's all she can think to say. "And not… not just for Shane."

Reagan's eyes flick up from the floor but then quickly back down again cause Karma's staring at her and it's less _at_ and more _through_ and yeah, if they're gonna do _this_ (and apparently they _are_ and, _apparently_ , she gets no say) then Karma's gonna have to not do _that_.

"I don't think I've ever actually said it," Karma says - and that's _bullshit_ cause she doesn't _think_ she's never said it, she _knows_ she hasn't - squeezing Reagan's hand as a small aftershock of nausea washes over her and she's not sure if it's the baby or if it's _this_. "But thank you," she says. "For forgiving me and for letting me in and for…" She blinks away tears and _God_ these hormones _suck_. "Thank you for giving me back my best friend."

Reagan looks up again at that - she fucking _has_ to - and _shit_ , that was a mistake cause Karma's still looking and it's like… ugh… it's like she's seeing _into_ her and _fuck all_ she sucks at moments like this which is _exactly_ why she avoids them, unless they're with Amy and _only_ with _her_ cause, well…

Moments like _this_ lead to other… _moments_ … and yes, Reagan _is_ thinking of sex right now cause otherwise she has to think of _this_ and that's just _so_ not happening.

"I didn't…" Reagan says and then trails off, wondering how many times she's gonna start her end of the conversation the same way. "Let's be real," she says. "I couldn't have kept you two apart if I'd tried."

She's right and they both know it, but _this_ Karma is smarter than her younger self and she knows enough not to argue _that_ point. "But you didn't," she says. "You didn't try. Not even after everything, not after the party and the mess and finding out I'd lied about Jack and then all the drama with Lucy and Liam…" Karma shakes her head and laughs. "I'm making you reconsider that not trying thing, aren't I?"

It's enough - just enough - of a reminder that yes, there's still a bit of the girl she _was_ in the woman Karma _is_ and, really, it's just kinda funny, and it breaks the tension, at least a little bit.

Reagan flips her hand over in Karma's, sliding their fingers together. "You didn't try either," she says. "At least, not after the party. You could have, you could've kept…" Reagan sighs and looks down at her hand in her lap, the one with the shiny perfect _just for her_ ring on it. "Amy would have picked _me_ ," she says, "but it would've broken her, I think, if she'd _had_ to." She looks back up at Karma. "But _you_ … you _chose_. You chose to let it go and you chose to be her friend and you chose… time after time the last ten years… you chose her happiness over yours."

It's Karma's turn to look away, but Reagan reaches over, catching her chin with a finger and turning her gaze back.

"Thank you, Karma," Reagan says and even she's surprised, a little, at how much she really does mean it. "For being Amy's friend. And mine."

They sit there like that - _together_ \- for this long moment and it feels, to the both of them, almost like… an _end_. Not of their friendship, which might have just actually grown - and neither of them saw _that_ coming - and not of this strange little family they've built or even of their life together and yes, it's odd - so fucking _odd_ \- to think of it like _that_ but it _is_ a life together, they're _all_ a package deal now. But it is an end, and end of _something_. A chapter, a bit of their story, a piece of their life and that… it just _hangs_ there, heavy in the air between them and it's been _so_ long in coming and now it's here and it's…

Right.

And then Karma retches in her chair, blurting a gurgled 'oh _shit_ ' and she's bolting from her chair, racing for the bathroom with a hand over her mouth and Shane spots her from across the room and he's hustling after her, calling out, yelling to hold her hair back and aim and watch out that she doesn't get any on her shoes cause they're one of a kind and oh… Reagan can't help it, she laughs and she laughs and she laughs until she cries.

Because she can see it. Reagan can just _see_ the years ahead for those two, all the dirty diapers and the skinned knees and the busted arms and the broken hearts. She can see the drama queen genes _and_ Karma's genes and she can _so_ see Grandma Molly and her kale smoothies and organic baby foods and she can totally see Aunt Sasha and her lessons on manipulating men (especially _Shane_ ) and she can see the look on Aunt Amy's face the very first time Karma's kid snatches hold of her finger and refuses to let go.

You know, kinda like her mother.

Reagan can see it all, stretching out in front of them. And she thinks that maybe, just _maybe_ , this time next year?

It'll be time to update that picture on their mantle.


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever wonder how our favorite couple got engaged? You did? Awesome! That's not what this chapter's about :) The next three chapters though, will be all about how Reamy dealt with that other major milestone: college. A bit of angst, a bit of fluff, a bit of Karma hijinks, and three flashbacks. Read, review, offer to punch and/or marry me (been getting that a lot lately). Enjoy (hopefully)!

_Seven Years Ago_

Amy's on the swing - _their_ swing, in _their_ park - with one hand clasped over her mouth. She can't _believe_ the word that just came out of it and it's like she thinks her hand can stop it, can trap it, can shove that word back in and make it so she didn't just say ' _no_ ' except her hand's just not that powerful and it can't turn back time (where the _fuck_ is Cher when you need her) so she _did_ just say it and no matter how much she might wish differently, there's just no take backs for _that_.

She watches Reagan cautiously - afraid to make eye contact - her other hand still just dangling there, holding the tiny velvet box that she hasn't even opened yet, her fingers trembling around it as the moment, as that _word,_ fucking floats there between them and Amy can see it, the one arched brow, the totally still and straight face - Reagan could kick _ass_ at poker except she's never been much of a gambler, at least not before _now_ \- that so calm face that would be utterly unreadable to anyone else. But Amy isn't anyone _else_ and she knows every curve of those brows and every flicker of those eyes and she _can_ read them, like a fucking book.

You fucked up, they say. You fucked up _bad_.

Yeah, maybe she can read that look cause she's seen it before. You know, a time or two.

(hundred)

Maybe (maybe)( _maybe?_ ) the fucking up isn't a first (or second or third or even first this _week_ ) and maybe it isn't the first time Amy's spoken without thinking but, oh, she's thinking _now_. In fact, that's pretty much _all_ she's doing. Amy's thinking about that box and she's thinking about that question, the one that always comes with a box like that, the question Reagan didn't even get to finish asking before her stupid mouth went into business for itself and, mostly, like almost _exclusively,_ Amy's thinking about that word.

No.

_No_.

She's said no to Reagan before (like this morning when the older girl offered her a ride to school and like last night when she offered her a… different… ride but Amy was tired tired _tired_ , like too tired to even just lay there and she's regretting _that_ now cause the idea that it might have been the last offer, at least for a long long _long_ while seems pretty fucking likely) but this… this was different.

This was _no._ This was _no_ to _that_.

And oh, Amy's gonna be hearing that word in her head for a long long _long_ while.

She's not the only one.

* * *

_Seven Years and Six Months Ago_

Before there's a swing and before there's an arched brow and before there's a hand clasped over a mouth and a hand holding a tiny box, there's a Karma. And in the moment, she says 'no', Amy also says (or _thinks_ , really) 'I'm going to kill _her_."

Not the first time _that_ thought's ever crossed her mind.

But before the swing and before the brow and the box and the 'no' - and yes, even before the Karma - there's an envelope.

There's three of them, really, but the last one is the only one that matters. The first of them, postmarked _Stanford, CA_ , comes on a Tuesday afternoon but Amy crashes at Reagan's that night so she doesn't see it until Wednesday evening, right before family dinner - which means Lauren and Theo and Reagan and her parents and Nana and, sometimes but not _this_ time, Karma - and she slips it silently out of the pile of mail while no one is looking and tucks it in her pocket.

That doesn't take much work as it's thin and it folds easily and really, that's all Amy needs to know. Still, three hours later, while Reagan's helping Farrah with cleanup and Lauren and Theo are watching a movie with Nana - something with Anna K., natch - Amy steals off to her room, shutting the door quietly behind her before she slips a finger beneath the seal, tugging the envelope open and spilling its contents onto her bed.

She knows what it says. She's known from the moment she sent the application what it _would_ say but the guidance counselors - which at Hester means Penelope and some of the teachers, like, for example, the new art teacher, you know, her _father_ \- told everyone or, really, everyone _else_ (cause Amy was in no mood to be _guided_ by _him_ ) that they should always apply in tiers.

First, right at the top, is the 'dream' tier, also known as the longshot or the 'there's no way in _hell_ that I get in, but what if I _did_ ' tier. Then there's the 'maybe' tier, the one filled with the places that might take you, if this person _doesn't_ apply or if that person _fails_ math or if _both_ those persons luck out and land their longshot school.

And then there's the Clement tier.

The counselors call it the 'realistic' tier or the 'likely' tier but the students call it the 'safety school' and Amy… well… she's taken to calling it the 'well _of course_ I'm going there' tier.

Most of the time.

Except, you know, for some nights. Like those nights when she's really alone. The nights when Reagan has to work late or DJ even later and Lauren's out somewhere with Theo and Karma is with Liam (not like _that_ ) or Lucy (not like _that_ , either) (maybe) (Amy's not sure but she _is_ sure she doesn't _want_ to be sure) and so she has to fall asleep on her own.

Those nights Amy's taken to calling it the 'well, of course I'm going there because _Karma_ is going there and we've always _planned_ go there and, really, so what if my whole life - my entire _world_ \- is so totally different than when we started planning way back when we were so tiny we didn't even know how to _spell_ college (seriously) (Karma spelled it with one 'l' until she was _fifteen_ ) and now I don't know what to do, so I'll just do _that_ because it's easiest and safest and Karma will be there and Reagan keeps telling me _it's_ OK and _we'll_ be OK and I know it's _not_ OK cause I can see it in her eyes every _fucking time_ but if she's gonna fake it, so am _I_ ' tier.

Or, you know, the 'I'm _fucked_ if I do and _fucked_ if I don't' tier. Either way, really.

Still, knowing or not, Amy's got to actually _read_ it, but it takes her like five minutes to gather the courage to do _that_ and then another ten or so to decide if she's more disappointed (which is silly cause she _knew_ ) or relieved (which is also silly cause, damn it all, she _wanted_ to go there) and, in the end, she goes with relieved, relieved that - at least for now - she and Reagan don't have to face reality and yeah, that does make it a little easier when Reagan pokes her head in the door to ask if Amy wants to go with her to Planter's to pick up dessert.

A _little_ easier.

That first envelope finds its way into the trash next to her desk and if Amy makes sure she dumps a few more papers and a handful of tissues and the remnants of a jelly filled from Planter's on top of it, the better to hide it away from enquiring (read: nosy) (read: _Lauren's_ ) eyes?

No harm in that. No harm at all.

The second envelope, the one also postmarked _CA_ \- as in U _C_ L _A_ \- comes a week and a half later and Amy's convinced it's a conspiracy. She's just gotten the Stanford… thing… out of her head (mostly) (like not thinking about it 24/7) (maybe just 18/5 or 15/6 or some other fractional kinda thing but she sucks at math so _whatever_ ) and she's even sort of managed to stop thinking about how she and Reagan are going to handle it.

'It' of course being the distance. And the not actually being in the same state. And the not being able to touch for weeks at a time (and, oh, that's almost enough to make her reconsider college _altogether)_ and the _worst_ of it, that one thought that sneaks in whenever Amy's least expecting it and can't do a damn thing to push it away.

The thought of one of them (Reagan) meeting someone else (someone not her) (someone that, in her head, always _looks_ like Shelby but acts like _Amy_ ), someone that's, you know, _there_. Amy tries not to worry about it, she tries to remind herself that it's just crazy talk, that Reagan _loves_ her and that distance is just like age. It ain't nothin but a number.

When that starts working for her, she'll let you know.

She's even tried to talk to Reagan about it, once or twice, but Amy's picked up on one very simple truth. Reagan doesn't _want_ to talk about it. She doesn't want to talk about it or think about it or _acknowledge_ it and even Karma could have read the signs for that, what with the way Reagan never brings it up or changes the subject whenever Lauren or Farrah starts in about it or pins Amy to the bed, whenever she tries to talk about it, her head between Amy's thighs, her tongue leaving the blonde too breathless to talk.

Not that Amy's complaining.

But now envelope number two is here, just when she'd almost gotten past it all and, really, Amy just doesn't understand why they couldn't just come on the same day, so she could've dealt with it once and been done. The envelopes were equally thin and, ultimately, equally pointless, and really, couldn't the post office have just made it easier on her?

Yeah. Right.

The second one comes on a Thursday and Amy is at Reagan's ( _again_ ) and so Lauren finds it before she does. She doesn't open it - no matter how much she wants to and no matter how easy it would be to steam the fucker open and then reseal it and Amy would _never_ know - and she brings it to school on Friday morning, slipping it to Amy discreetly across their lab table in Physics and Amy nods once, a silent 'thank you' and that's the last either of them speaks of it until the car ride home that afternoon.

And Amy immediately regrets not riding the bus.

The ride home has become their routine, her's and Lauren's and Karma's and (sometimes) Lucy's, at least when sister number two isn't needed elsewhere.

Sometimes it's Jack needing her at the coffee shop and sometimes it's Liam needing her help with… well… whatever the hell it is Liam needs help with (Amy doesn't know) (or care) and, sometimes, Lucy's just in a… weird… mood. One where she can't even _look_ at Karma and Karma, for her part, is overly chatty and extra nice and _super_ enthusiastic about _everything_ and no, the two of them aren't hiding anything _at all_.

But again, Amy doesn't know. Or care. Or, at least, care enough to ask and risk what little sanity she has left, what peace of mind those fucking envelopes haven't taken from her. But that's what the ride is for. A few minutes of peace and quiet and some good music and some idle chit chat and it's just… perfect. Their own little internal combustion powered Garden of Eden.

"Was that the last one?" Lauren asks and Amy's not sure if her sister's the snake or the apple but she _is_ sure Eden just got paved the fuck over.

Lauren never takes her eyes off the road to look at Amy or to glance at Karma in the backseat, and she asks softly enough that she hopes maybe the steady beat of Everclear blaring out of the speakers - Amy has developed a certain affection for _Father of Mine_ \- will be enough drown her out and Karma won't notice but, she sees the redhead's eyes snap up in the rearview and, apparently, among her other attributes, Karma has the hearing of a fucking _bat_.

"The last one what?" she asks, leaning forward between the two blondes and Amy _would_ glare at her sister - like that would get her anywhere - but she'd already planned on telling Karma about envelope number two tonight anyway.

Right after, you know, she tells her about envelope number one.

"I got my letter from UCLA," Amy says, slipping the thin envelope out of her bag and reaching it over the seat and into the back to Karma without looking. "And no," she says, "it wasn't the last one. Stanford already came but there's still -"

"Clement," Karma says, almost automatically, as she stares at the letter, her eyes roaming over and over it again, letting those words - _We are sorry to inform_ \- sink in and wondering why it is she feels so… _bad_?... about Amy ending up at the same school as her.

That's the dream, right? _Their_ dream. And they're still allowed to have those, aren't they?

Of course they are.

Still…

"Yeah," Amy says and she sounds - or tries to sound - less _resigned_ and more _enthused_ but she's not sure it quite works. (Spoiler Alert: it _doesn't_.) "There's still Clement. And that admissions rep we met said I had a good chance, especially if I got my grades up in math and it's been straight… 'B-minuses'... ever since, so…"

Lauren nods (about as enthusiastically as Amy _sounds_ ) and Karma listens and watches and then she starts jabbering again, like _non-stop_ , like a full court fucking press of reassurance and affirmation. They all know what she's doing, that it's her best friend _job_ to remind Amy of all the truly important stuff, even if, you know, all those important things are all summed up in trite little sound bites right out of the inspirational cliches handbook.

"If they don't want you," she says, "they're stupid."

(Two of the best schools in the country. The _best_ film school in the country. But _they're_ stupid.)

"If they don't accept you, it's their loss," she adds.

(Yup. Cause now they'll _never_ have enough students to fill up their freshman class.)

"You," she says, leaning forward again. "Are better than them anyway."

(Damn right. Totes better. So much better. Like they're Michael Bay and she's fucking Spielberg better.)

(Though, really, _Armageddon_ is awesome.) (Like _awesome_.) (And _Transformers_ didn't suck and, no, that wasn't because of Megan Fox and her crop top.)

(Not _just_.)

(And where was Amy going with _this_? She got a little distracted with the whole Megan Fox bit.)

"I've never liked Stanford anyway," Karma says. "They've got a stick up their ass and you know they're not really an _ivy,_ right? And UCLA? All they've got going for them is the _LA_ and we're going to the _better_ LA and you and me? We're gonna rule that town. Karmy's gonna take New Orleans by storm!"

(All true. The stick up the ass and the not an ivy bits at least. Though, maybe, it might be better to not mention New Orleans and 'storms' in the same breath.) (Just saying.)

"And someday, when you're a big shot filmmaker and they want you to come teach there or talk to their students?" Karma's on a roll now and Amy's _almost_ feeling it. "You know what you're gonna do? You're gonna tell them that they can go _fuck_ themselves. Can I get an _amen_ up in this bitch?"

"AMEN!"

It's Lauren who says it.

_Lauren_.

She turns to Amy with a shrug. "What?" she says. "That was some good shit."

Amy laughs - it's a snort, really - and it's more at the attitude than the words but, she has to admit, it's time like these that she's _so_ grateful for her sister and even more grateful that she's still got Karma. Somehow, she always finds a way to make it better.

"What does Reagan say?"

Better? Did she say better?

Apparently, Amy doesn't get to have _better_. At least not for more than like thirty seconds at a time.

"I mean, I know you're a bit wrecked that you didn't get in," Lauren says and yes, she can _totally_ feel Karma's eyes burning a hole in the back of her head and she knows she's wrecking the whole 'good shit' vibe. But she's seen Amy and she's seen Reagan and she knows her sister and she knows her best friend and the two of them have been _Dancing with the Stars_ their way around this for months and now? Time is _short_. "But it's a relief, right?" she asks, trying to pry without, you know, _prying_. "At least now you know you don't have to go halfway across the country away from _her_."

Nope. Only five hundred eleven point nine miles. Seven hours and thirty-two minutes. Amy Googled. She and Reagan will basically, be a school day away from each other.

All day. Every day. For weeks at a time. Sometimes, months.

Amy nods and then shrugs and yup, that about covers it. "We haven't really talked about it all that much," she says. And, by 'all that much' she really means 'at _all_ ' and she's not entirely sure if that's because neither of them _wants_ to or because neither of them _can_ or just because she lets Reagan fuck the talk right out of her every single time they start down that path.

Though it's not like Amy fights her on it. Except once in a while. And only when she's in the mood for the cuffs or the scarves and no… thinking about that in Lauren's front seat is _so_ not happening.

Lauren nods and Amy knows she wants to say something else, that she wants to try and convince her to talk to Reagan about it, that it's what's best for them both. And Amy knows she's probably right - even if Lauren doesn't actually _say_ it - but she also knows that with the number of screaming matches her sister and Theo have gotten into lately (Lauren = Yale and Yale = Connecticut and Theo = Ohio State and Ohio State = _not Connecticut_ ), Lauren doesn't have a whole lot of room to talk.

Amy takes envelope number two back from Karma and slides it between the pages of her _American Government_ textbook. She's going to do just what she did with number one and pretend that it isn't even there, that it never came, that she never even applied. "The letters don't change anything," she says. "I'm not going to Stanford and I'm not going to UCLA and so why even bring it up?" Karma nods in the back (best friend to the end) and though Lauren's hands tighten on the wheel, she doesn't disagree so that's the same as a 'you're right' in Amy's book.

It's a flawed book, with lots of torn pages filled with cross out and 'sometimes, you're such an _idiot_ ' notes in the margin, but it's _hers_.

Lauren pulls up outside Planter's and Amy hops out. She and Reagan have a standing Friday after school date for a doughnut (or two) and some time in their park (code for making out) and then a quick stop at Reagan's place for her to change for work (code for more making out or, depending on when she has to work…) (wink wink nudge nudge.) She leans down, sticking her head back in through the open window.

"I shouldn't be too late," she says. "Rea's got a catering gig and then a two am DJ gig so I'll probably be home early. You gonna be around?"

Lauren nods but Karma shakes her head. "I'm uh.. I've got… you know…"

Amy laughs and nods. "Tell Lucy I said hi," she says. "Or tell Liam I didn't. Whichever." She waves quickly and heads up the short hill to the restaurant, her sister and her best friend watching her go.

Lauren starts the car back up, pulling a u-turn as Karma clambers out of the back and into the passenger seat. "So," she says, "who _do_ you have plans with tonight?"

Karma settles in and clicks her buckle into place. "You," she says, matter of factly.

Lauren shoots her a look. "Me?" she asks. "As in… _me_?"

"Yes, as in _you_ ," Karma laughs. "We have work to do. Amy and I leave for New Orleans in six months. Which means we've got like _five_ months to get her and Reagan engaged."


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I really need to stop tweaking these when I go to post them. My goal was to end this a couple of weeks ago, on the two year 'anniversary' of chapter one. So, that didn't happen. Partly because of real life and partly because I had more ideas when I went back to what I'd written. Which is now this, which is twice as long as it started. Hope it was worth the wait. And oh, throw me a bone and review! Been two years, people! :)

_Seven Years Ago_

It's all about the shock.

Yup. Shock. _That's_ it, that's Amy's reason, that's her _excuse_. Shock is her story and she's totally sticking to it. That word… that _no…_ it was said in surprise, in amazement, in a state of complete and abject fucking… _shock_.

(See? Story _and_ sticking to it.) (Woot Amy!)

She never saw it coming and, really - if we're gonna be, you know, _picky_ about it - since she said that... word… (no) (she said fucking _no_ ) _before_ Reagan _asked_ , well, then she didn't actually see it _or_ hear it cause, you know, it never actually _came_.

So, really - if we're gonna be _picky_ (again) - Amy didn't actually say no cause you can't say no if you were never asked, right?

Right.

"No?"

Apparently, Reagan doesn't quite see the… right… of it all.

But Amy _does_ see, she sees oh so fucking _clearly_.

She sees that _this_? This is _it_ , this is _that…_ moment, _her_ moment. This is her chance (cue inspirational music swelling up in the background), her _second_ chance - and probably her _last_ , if she's reading those eyebrows right - to fix it, to make it better, to put right what she just managed, in such an 'only Amy' kind way, to put _wrong_.

This?

This is an opportunity, that's what this _is_. It's an opportunity come a knock knock knockin' on her door. It's a voice (that _too_ ), and it's calm and it's soothing and it's reassuring - so, you know, it's totally not _hers_ \- and it's speaking to her, whispering in her ear, telling her just the right words to say and she's totally not wondering where that voice was _five minutes ago_.

But it's here now, so she should, you know, probably listen to it, she should probably pay attention to what it's saying.

Reagan. _That's_ what it's saying. Remember how much she means to you, remember how much you've been through, every storm you've weathered. From Hurricane Karma to Typhoon Jack, from the miserable downpours of Tropical Storm Liam to the ferocious F- 5 winds of Tornado Lucy. Remember - if you can - the last time it was even _possible_ for you to imagine a life without Reagan, it says. Remember every moment since that little DJ cart bumped against your hip and you heard the words that changed your life forever.

"You're saying _no_?"

( _Ugh_ ) (Dammit, Reagan, she's _trying_ here!)

No, not _those_ words, it says (whispers) (and yes, Amy's aware she's talking to herself without actually, you know, _talking_.) It was those _other_ words - 'Shrimp Girl?' and 'you should come up and visit me later' - and, let's be real, it says to her, even back then you didn't hear _those_ words so much as you heard angels singing (an entire choir) (with a 'hallelujah' soaring out from every throat) (all of them sounding suspiciously like Lauren and Shane) and there were harps playing and the sun was shining and there was a voice in your head ( _another_ one) (you might need to get that looked into) and it was saying 'go, go, go, climb girl, _climb_!'

Yes, that's cheesy. And silly. And sappy and the sort of thing Amy would expect from Karma and not her subconscious and it's all very 'oh, give me a fucking _break_.'

But when she looks at Reagan - even pissed off, kinda rejected, ready to blow and not in the good way that Amy makes her do with her tongue Reagan - Amy _still_ hears the angels (every time) and she still hears the harps (once in a while, usually when _she's_ ready to blow) and the sun is always shining.

(They live in Texas. It's not _that_ uncommon.)

See, the voice says, nothing has changed. And it's right. Nothing has changed for Amy, except for _everything_ , except for her and the person she is and, maybe, the resolve she has to be the person she's always wanted to be, the one that maybe she forgot for a little while (between 'let's be lesbians' and, you know, actually _being one_ ) but no matter how many angels she hears and no matter how many harps play, Amy knows that that box (that she hasn't opened) and that question (that she hasn't heard) and that word she can't imagine _not_ saying (the one she _didn't_ ) would change _everything_ in every way

And she's just not ready for that yet.

So, she nods. "I'm saying no."

That's her story. And she's sticking to it.

* * *

_Seven Years and Three Months Ago_

There have been a good many things Lauren's imagined - sorry, _visualized_ (if you visualize it, you'll _be_ it) - that she would someday become.

A Yale graduate at twenty-two, still on track. Master's by twenty-four, elected to her first local government position - Austin City Council, probably - by twenty-six, on her way to a spot in the Dallas statehouse by twenty-nine.

She'd take a year off in there, in the middle, for marriage. To Theo (duh) as if her schedule would leave her any time for breaking in a new husband-to-be. Plus, Theo is sweet and good and kind and he seems to be keeping up his end of the loving her for _exactly_ who she is _and_ not being an asshole bargain, so she guesses she'll keep him.

She could do worse.

(Or so she thinks.) ( _Then_.)

It will be a small, intimate November ceremony. She's had November 4 pegged as her date since, well, since she was old enough to understand calendars _and_ marriage. Bruce will walk her down the aisle and Amy, Farrah, and Reagan will stand beside her as she takes her vows. They'll all look fantastic, of course. None of that craptastically hideous colored taffeta bridesmaids bullshit _here_.

Not that any of them will look as good as her, but that's kinda the point, right?

"That's _it_? That's _all_?" Amy asked her once, during a girl's lunch with Karma and Reagan and Lucy and, even though _that_ particular lunch was pre 'the kiss' (Karma and Lucy) and post 'the reconciliation' (Karma and Amy) and somewhere in the middle of the 'we don't hate each other but we're so _not_ friends' (Karma and Reagan and is anyone else sensing a _theme_ here?), it was still just about as awkward as you'd expect.

"Yeah," Karma chimed in - which she only did when Amy led the way cause she was still pretty much terrified to speak otherwise - "no twenty piece orchestra?"

"I was expecting at least three hundred people," Reagan said. "And at least like… two hundred of them we wouldn't even know."

"Butlered hors d'oeuvres," Lucy added, to wildly enthusiastic nods from the other three. "And bubbly! Like two grand a bottle champagne, just for toasts!"

Oh, those girls. Those silly, silly, so uninformed and _God_ , they all better hope Lauren agrees to plan their weddings someday _girls._

"First of all," Lauren said, calmly poking her fork through her pasta alfredo - it was her carb cheat day and it was a Friday and she wanted it so you can just STFU, alright? - "everyone knows an orchestra? Not worth a _damn_ if it's less than thirty and for a November wedding, that would just be ostentatious."

Lauren pretended not to notice Karma - _and_ Lucy _and_ Reagan - Googling 'ostentatious' on their phones, under the table.

Amy didn't have to. She lived with her. She was used to the vocabulary.

"Secondly," Lauren said as she reached over and speared a bite of Amy's chicken cordon bleu off her plate (cheat day, remember?), "it wouldn't matter if I didn't know _any_ of those people because _they_ would know _me_. And third, a sit down dinner is the _only_ way to go." She stabbed another bite of chicken, ignoring Amy's 'I was eating _that_ ' glare. "Butlered hors d'oeuvres are _so_ 2015 and I _hate_ champagne." She reached again and Amy blocked an effort at a third bite, which might not have been her best choice. "Besides," Lauren said, "if I recall correctly, some of us don't handle the bubbly so well."

Karma and Reagan both choked on their waters and Amy stared daggers at her sister - but didn't block any more bites - and Lucy felt confused and left out.

Not that _that_ was new. It was pre 'the kiss', after all, and that was when she really joined the team. Apparently, as Lauren would say later, _post_ 'the kiss', "you're just not one of us till you _make out_ with one of us."

Plus, Lauren pointed out, returning to her own meal, not _everything_ in life has to be big or about being the best or the brightest or the _most_. "All that matters," she said, "is the right people standing next to you and the right man -"

"Or _woman_."

(She was never sure which of the other _four_ said it the fastest.)

"Right, or _woman_ ," Lauren amended, "standing across from you."

She was right, of course. And, maybe, if she'd had the right man standing across from her the first time, well...

But back to her schedule. Once that year - which was the absolute _minimum_ it would take for planning and prepping and, you know, the actual _marrying_ \- it would be time to get back on track and that meant State Senator by thirty-two, Senator Senator by thirty-five and _that_ , she said, was the magic number.

"Kids?" Lucy asked.

"President," Lauren replied. "It would be sooner but, you know, the _law_ and all that."

Lauren had it all laid out in her head - and in her dream journal, tucked under her mattress, with _three_ tiny padlocks on it and a note on the cover reminding anyone that found it that she most likely knew something _horrible_ about them and she wasn't afraid to use it - and it was, if she did say so herself, _perfect_.

Maybe not everything has to be about being the best and brightest and most. But not everything doesn't either.

Of course, like any plan - perfect or otherwise - there were interruptions. Hiccups, if you will. For Lauren, those started _years_ ago. Her mother's death was the first.

And always the worst. _Always_.

Her father's string of increasingly poor romantic decisions following her mother's death had been the second. And the third. And the fourth. _And_ when he had dragged her - kicking and screaming and vowing legal action - to Austin and to Farrah and to Amy and Hester and all the rest, Lauren had been convinced her life had turned into one never ending hiccup.

But then came Karma. And that did _nothing_ to change her mind. And then came Shane and Liam and yup, one big fucking _hiccup_. But then, when she was least expecting it, came Amy and Reagan and Theo and, eventually - like the longest eventually in history - Karma and Shane and Lucy and, well, _then_ Lauren had to admit that even with all the visualizations in the world?

She'd never seen a family coming.

But of all things Lauren had ever imagined herself being or, even, of the ones she _hadn't_ , the one she _most_ never saw coming?

Karma's sidekick.

Which brings us back to the Ashcroft plan du jour.

"Engaged?" Seriously? Like as in 'getting married' _engaged_?"

Karma nods and Lauren frowns cause, let's be honest, she knows that nod now. She knows it far too fucking well.

"Oh, no," Lauren says, almost leaning across the table in the back corner of Planter's that, somehow, has become _their_ table and it's not like there's a 'reserved for Amy, Reagan, Lauren, Karma, Lucy, Shane, Theo and anyone else they _like_ ' sign on it, but there may as well be, and she fixes Karma with her most… _Lauren_ look. "Don't you _even_."

"Don't I even _what_?" Karma asks, her eyes focused on the table or her milkshake or, you know, pretty much anywhere that isn't the towering - even in her tininess - blonde across the table.

"Don't you give me that 'my mind is made up and I'm doing it whether you're on board with it or not but please, please, _please_ be on board so when it all goes to shit I'm not in a fucking _world_ of trouble all by myself' nod, Ashcroft.

It comes out in one rushing breath and Lauren has to steal a quick sip of Karma's shake before she can speak again and that gives Karma an opening, which she instinctively knows is most likely the only one she's gonna get.

"I don't have a 'my mind is made up…' whatever the hell else you said, _nod_ ," she says, even if she knows full well that's _exactly_ what she has. "I have a nod, just the same as everyone else does."

Head up. Head down. _Head up_ , you're so not gonna convince me, _head down_ , that I _shouldn't_ scheme my best friend and her girlfriend into marriage. A marriage that is legal now, you know, but that's not in the nod, so…

Karma returns her attention to the table, to the paper and the pen in her hand just above it. It's purple - the pen - and the paper is pink, like sickening tummy coating for when you ate too much the night before _pink_.

Lauren's only slightly jealous that she doesn't have stationary just like it. "Bullshit," she says, reaching across the table and plucking the pen from Karma's hand. She can't plan if she can't write. "That's the same nod you gave me when you decided you were going to talk to Lucy about the kiss."

Karma's eyes go wide - like super poorly drawn by a fifth grader anime wide, like 'holy _fuck_ you mentioned that in _public_ and Vashti is sitting like two tables over and I don't wanna end up on the front page of the tumblr _again_ ' wide - and she grabs for the pen but Lauren keeps it just out of reach. "We agreed to never speak of… _that_ … again," Karma hisses.

"No," Lauren says. " _You_ agreed." She smiles that smile Karma knows too well and the other girl drops her head into her hands. "I just _nodded_. Same as everyone -"

"I get it," Karma mumbles, cutting Lauren off. "Fine. I have a _nod_." She reaches down and fumbles through her purse, resting next to her chair. "And yes, for the record, _engaged_ as in to get married and spend the rest of their lives together, which we all know they're going to do anyway and HA!"

Karma sits back up, triumphantly holding a pen - purple, again - in her hands.

Lauren snatches it away and she thinks - for a moment - Karma might actually cry.

"You _do_ realize how insane that is, right?" Lauren asks, but Karma refuses to answer. She just stares forlornly at her two pens, one in each of Lauren's hands. "Amy's eighteen. Reagan's barely twenty-one. Half the bridal couple won't even be able to drink at the reception."

Yeah. Cause _that's_ the _only_ reason Karma's plan is nuts. Well… her plan to make a plan, anyway, because she hasn't really started the plan, yet.

No pen and all.

"I didn't say they had to get married next week, Lauren." Karma shakes her head and glances down at her purse, trying to remember if she packed two pens or three. "I just said engaged and just before Amy and I leave for school. They can actually do the deed… whenever. After college or grad school or after Reagan gets a record deal or, you know…"

She mumbles something and Lauren has to ask her to repeat it.

Karma sighs. "I said or…afterImeetaboywho'snotatotaldoucheorsomeoneelse'sbabydaddy."

Or _notagirlwhoisalsoAmy'ssister_ but since _we'reneverspeakingofthatagain_ , _that_ goes unsaid.

And, really, when she puts it _that_ way… "It's _still_ fucking insane," Lauren snaps as she taps one pen against the other.

It _is_ insane. It's cray cray and weird and ridiculous. You know who gets engaged in high school? Fucking weirdos and cult members, that's _who_. And yes, Lauren knows that Amy and Reagan are always going to be together and yes… now that she thinks of it… that is kinda sweet and super romantic and yes… now that she thinks of it _again_ … she _could_ throw them the most kickass combo engagement and graduation party…

"You're thinking about it," Karma says with a bemused little chuckle and a bemused little grin and Lauren wants to bemuse her right upside her head. "You're actually _thinking_ about it."

"Am _not_ ," Lauren says with 'pshh'. She tosses Karma's pens back on the table. "I'm just thinking that it's pointless for me to try and stop you because you're going to do it anyway, just like with the -"

Karma holds up a hand - the most terrified look _ever_ on her face - and Lauren hushes just in time as Amy drops down into the chair next to her.

"Karma's going to do what anyway?" she asks as she reaches over with one hand to steal a pickle from Lauren's plate and grabs Karma's shake with the other. She looks at Karma and her slightly redder than her hair face and frowns. "Ugh," she says, setting the shake back down without even taking a sip. "Tell me this isn't about you and Lucy again."

Lauren's eyes go wider than Karma's and they both steal quick glance at Vashti - who seems totally oblivious but oh, come on, she's the _press_ and that's always how they get you - before turning back to Amy. "Wait… you know?"

Amy snaps off a bite of pickle and nods. "She kissed my sis… Lucy," she says, speedily correcting away from using the 's' word in front of Lauren.

"I know what she did," Lauren says, choosing for the moment to ignore the almost slip of the tongue and focus on the bigger picture. "But _she_ told me. And I know _she_ didn't tell you so that means…" At this rate, Lauren thinks, as they widen and widen and _widen_ , her eyes might just stretch over her head. " _Lucy_ told you?"

The pickle finds its way back onto Lauren's plate as Amy scoops up a handful of fries. "Not exactly," she says. "Lucy was freaked out and she needed someone to talk to and her normal confidant was kinda out of the question." She nods at Karma. "So, she turned… elsewhere."

Karma slides the shake across the table without looking and Amy takes a sip.

And chews a fry.

And takes another sip.

And another fry. And reaches for the ketchup just as _Lauren_ reaches her breaking point. "Amy!"

"What?" Amy asks, pausing mid-motion, the ketchup bottle pointed dangerously close to her white shirt and that _so_ can't end well. "Oh, sorry, you wanted to know?"

There's just enough of a smirk on her face that Lauren knows that _she_ knows and that she knows that _Lauren_ knows and oh, what she _really knows_ is that Amy's gonna _pay_ , but that's _later_.

"Yes," Lauren and Karma say in unison _now_ and yes, that's as terrifying as it sounds.

"Fine," Amy says, setting the ketchup down. "Lucy told Liam." She holds up a hand at Karma's burgeoning protest. "I know," she says. "And Liam couldn't manage to handle his ex making out with -"

"A kiss," Karma interjects. "One. Singular. Uno, Un, less than two, most definitely _not_ making out."

Lauren and Amy both arch a brow - and Lauren's actually looks like a question and not like she's stroking out at the table - before Amy continues.

"Anyway… Liam couldn't handle it so he confided in Shane." Another hand, this time aimed at Lauren. "I _know_ ," she says. "And Shane… well… he's _Shane_ so, of course he couldn't keep it to himself."

"So Shane told you?"

"No, Shane told _me,"_ Reagan says, settling into the chair between Karma and Amy - and yes, that seating is entirely _intentional_ \- and sliding a plate full of burger and fries over to her hungry girlfriend. "Which is, basically, the same as telling Amy, so…"

They all nod cause, well, _yeah_.

"And BTDubs, Karm?" Amy asks. "Totes making out."

Karma turns redder - which Lauren didn't know was possible - and shakes her head, whipping her hair back and forth. "No," she says, _emphatically._ "Not making out. One kiss and _only_ one and why are we even talking about -"

"Judges?" Amy interrupts, turning to Lauren and Reagan. "We need a ruling. Kiss or making out?"

Lauren watches as Karma's head drops and, as much as she sometimes misses being more enemy than friend with the girl, she does have to admit, embarrassing the hell out of her is a lot more fun this way.

"If the kiss lasts more than two minutes," Reagan says, dipping a fry in the ketchup on Amy's plate, "it's making out."

Karma says nothing.

"If the kiss involves copious amounts of tongue, particularly if said tongue is _mutual_ ," Lauren adds, "it's making out."

Still silence from Karma's side of the table.

"If," Amy says, "the kiss involves any groping, fondling, or lingering touching of parts _other_ than lips? It's making out."

"Over or under clothes?" Karma blurts before she can think better of it - like _that's_ not her life story in a nutshell - and now it's Amy who gets the wide eyes and _Lauren_ who gets the bemused little smile as she answers.

"If you gotta ask?" she laughs, "It's making out."

Karma sighs and picks up her pen. "Fine," she mumbles. "It was making out and now that we've established _that_ can we just, you know, never _mention_ it again?"

"Mention what?" Lucy asks as she pulls up a chair _rightnext_ to Karma's and the whole table laughs.

Well, except for Karma. She's too busy putting her head in her hands, trying - and failing, failing absolutely _miserably_ \- to cover the fact that she's gone like _Mars_ red and she's only saved (and the rest of them _wrecked_ ) by Lucy.

"Ooooh," Lucy says, almost hopping - yes, _hopping_ \- in her seat and pointing excitedly at the paper in front of Karma, apparently oblivious (which is how _she_ gets around _her_ ) that it's still, you know, _blank_. "Is that the list?"

Amy stops mid-chew, the burger - her delicious bacon and mushroom and extra extra BBQ sauce with tiny bits of onion rings spread on it burger - suddenly losing its flavor. Reagan freezes in her chair, like if she doesn't move, it's not really happening. And Lauren fixes Lucy with her most… _Lauren_ … glare - which, unfortunately, Lucy is too used to getting for it to have any impact - before turning her attention to Amy.

"Sometimes," she whispers - and they both know she means like _all_ the time - "I really wish you were an only child."

* * *

Ah, the list.

Or, as Reagan - and Amy and Lauren and Shane (if he was around more) and Liam (if it wasn't _for_ him) (and even still…) - might put it: Ah, the _motherfucking piece of shit I swear to_ God _if she makes us go over it one more time I'm gonna light it… or her… on fire_ list.

Or, you know, something like that.

The paper in front of Karma, the one Lucy's so helpfully pointing at, isn't the list. The list is in Karma's purse, for one and, for two, that paper Lucy's pointing at was supposed to be for Karma's _other_ pet project, the one involving more rings and church bells and rice being tossed and pretty dresses being worn and less - far, far, _far_ less - baby booties and pacifiers and two am feedings.

Plus, it's not the list cause, _duh_ , it's _blank_. No pens, remember? "Nope," Karma says. "Not the list."

Didn't we just establish _that_? Like back at ' _duh'?_

"But," she says and that's _all_ she _has_ to say. Just that, just 'but' - cause it's _always_ the 'but', you know - just that one word is enough to make Amy wonder if she can make it to the car before Karma gets the damn thing out and enough to make Lauren regret ever letting Karma have the pens back and enough to make Reagan… well…

Let's just say Amy's already slowly sliding all the cutlery away from her girlfriend's side of the table.

It's not that Reagan doesn't like the list. It's _not_.

It's that she _hates_ the list. Like unreasonably and irrationally and with a fury Amy hasn't seen in her since the last time she knocked a dude out (which wasn't Liam but, again, that's another story.) No one is quite sure _why_ she hates it so much - or if Karma's even _aware_ that she does cause, you know, _Karma_ \- and that 'no one' includes Reagan who, whenever she thinks about it and really, that's not _too_ often - chalks it up to it being a Karma-list.

See, it's two years _after_ rock bottom but it's still a few years - like, _eight_ , but no one's counting, not just _yet_ \- before a certain moment in Planter's when the hatchet officially gets buried once and for all and whole Reagan and Karma get along now, it's not always… easy.

Cause, you know, _Karma_.

And, let's be honest, cause _Reagan_ too.

(Amy knows how to pick 'em.)

But, in both their defenses, they're both _trying_. Karma has steadfastly avoided doing or saying _anything_ that would even _suggest_ she (still?) has feelings for Amy.

Things like blushing-slash-drooling when Amy changes in front of her in the locker room (but those _abs_ ) or singing unintentionally romantic songs to her from the lawn or getting annoyed when Amy spends more time with Reagan than her (a work in _slow_ progress) or, you know, making out with a girl who might be the closest substitute to Amy she could possibly find…

oh… wait.

She's trying. Trying doesn't always equal succeeding, but she's putting in the effort and that _counts_.

And Reagan is trying too, she's trying so hard, so very very _very_ hard to keep the promise she made to Amy at Lauren's eighteenth birthday soiree.

"Yes, Amy," she'd said as she leaned against the stairs and wished, not for the first time, that someone - read: _her_ \- had spiked the punch. "I promise. I promise I will try _harder_ to get along with Karma and I promise that I won't ever even _wonder_ about you two being roomies in college, even though I'm sure you could have found any number of other _nice_ girls to room with that I would have liked _so_ much better, and yes, we can totally sneak upstairs and have sex while Lauren's opening her presents."

She might have only said that last part in her head.

Which doesn't mean it totally didn't happen.

"That's all I'm asking," Amy said or, more accurately, _gasped_ cause, you know, out of breath from the very _enthusiastic_ , yet remarkably _quiet_ , present opening sex. "Just _try_ ," she said, "and maybe… kinda… if you can… turn down the snark about _everything_ she says, maybe just a _smidge_?"

Reagan _wanted_ to protest. She _so_ did. She even rolled over onto her side and did her best to level a Lolo-like glare at Amy as preparation for said protest. Her snark, she wanted to remind Amy, was one of her better qualities. She wanted to point out that it went - in order - her ass, her brows, her snark, her lips.

(OK, the order might be negotiable.)

She wanted to do all that. But, it turned out, one of _Amy's_ better qualities, a skill, really - one honed through several _years_ of _dedicated_ study and practice - was knowing _exactly_ how to angle her fingers to get Reagan to do damn near anything she wanted.

A skill she put to use right then and right there, on the floor beside her bed where they would totally be out of sight if someone were to walk in.

But, unfortunately, not out of thumping heels on the floor which just happens to be the dining room ceiling and yeah, Lauren gave them a _talking to_ later.

And so, Reagan agreed to try harder - which may or may not have been (totally _was_ ) the word she whispered-slash-moaned as Amy did her best convincing for the next few minutes if, by 'minutes', you totally mean like an _hour_ and yeah, they got talked to about that _too_. And then Amy reminded her of her agreement one last time on their way back down to the party.

Which was _so_ not the _down_ Reagan wanted to be _going_.

"If you can't say something nice," Amy said, with one eye on Karma who was standing lonely and uncomfortably by the front door and so not _obviously_ avoiding Lucy and yeah, Amy was gonna have to talk to one or the other of them about _that_. Maybe. Probably not. "Then, at least," she said to Reagan as she kissed her on the cheek and went off to find her sister - the one _not_ likely to make out with her best friend - "try not to say anything that's, you know, outright _mean_."

Reagan nodded. But that was easier said than… well… _said._

But she did try. She tried and she tried and she reminded Amy, on the fucking regular, that she was _trying_. And, honestly, she did a pretty good job, usually, and, even _more_ honestly, it wasn't all that hard, really, cause - and this is like _ridiculously_ honestly - Karma was sort of staring to grow on her.

Until the list.

Reagan is not a list person. Like, not even a grocery list or a 'to do' list - why make a list that just says 'Amy' like a thousand times? - and none of them are, not really. Lauren likes lists OK, but she prefers charts and plans and detailed methodology. And as for Amy… well… she's like Reagan: she _tries_. She really really does. Years and years and _years_ of Karma rubbing off on her - and no, not like _that_ \- have inspired her more than once to give the list thing the old college try.

And she _can_ make one. A good one, _great_ even. Full of details and bullets and sub-bullets and arrows and, really, Amy's something of a list savant, a Rain man of the list, as it were.

But then, she forgets. Like, _all of it._ She forgets why she was making the list and she forgets why she put things where she put them on the list and, more often than she'd like to admit, she forgets where she put _the list_.

"If I need a list to _find_ my list," she says, "it's too much fucking work."

So, the lists are all a Karma thing and, again, that might not be too bad, even for Reagan, except for _this_ list. Oh, this list… it _sucks_.

And oh, it should be noted - probably - that this list? It's the official list of possible names for little baby Booker. Or, as Reagan has come to refer to it: The Spawn.

What? She didn't say _Hell_ spawn. _Or_ Spawn of Satan. Or little fucker what gonna get birthed cause _big_ fucker couldn't keep _his_ little fucker locked away and now there's gonna be _another_ one of _them_ \- Bookers - and, really, is that too long for the list?

It probably is. Even if it _is_ entirely _accurate_.

Amy's sick of the list and she's been sick of it since the first time Karma pulled it out (which, maybe, is what Liam should have done) (oh, like you _weren't_ thinking it) and asked her what she thought of 'Caroline'. Amy's sick of it and Lauren tolerates it, mostly just so she can continue to put her two cents in cause no decision, not even the naming of The Spawn, should be done without two Cooper Cents.

"Caroline is too old fashioned," she says. "It's 2016 Ashcroft, try and keep up."

So, Amy's sick of it and Lauren tolerates and Reagan… well… we covered _that_. And then there's Lucy.

Lucy _loves_ the list. Lucy is _all about_ the list, she thinks the list is _great_ , the list - according to her, and _only_ her - is just fucking _brilliant_. Sometimes, Reagan thinks if she asked Lucy what she wants to be when she grows up?

She'd totally say the list.

And, OK, so, _maybe_ , Lucy's affection for the list is less about the list and _more_ about the person _making_ the list but Reagan (and Amy and Lauren and Theo and Shane and Farrah - _especially_ Farrah - and even _Jack_ ) try not to think about _that_ any more than necessary.

So, you know, like _at all_.

But none of them, not even Lucy, feels as… passionately… about it as Reagan does. She _hates_ it (we might have mentioned that, but it _so_ bears repeating.) She hates the list like she hates Jack - maybe… _maybe_ … a little less - but unlike her hatred for him, she can't think of any actually logical reason _why_. It's not because it's about Liam or his kid, cause all that shit with him… well… it's not _exactly_ water under the bridge.

But she doesn't actively spend time wanting to _drown_ him under the bridge, so that's something, right? They've reached a sort of 'gentleperson's agreement'. He doesn't bother her and she doesn't _punch_ him and that seems to be working just fine for them both.

But that list…

"It's more scientific than you think," Karma says as she tugs the list out of her purse because of course she has it. Reagan rolls her eyes and Amy glares at her but she can just go right on glaring cause an eye roll? Not breaking her promise, she didn't _say_ a thing. "Naming a kid is _not_ simple," Karma says, smoothing the list out on the table. "You have to consider a lot of different variables."

Like, for instance, how many other baby mamas the baby daddy is gonna end up with cause you totes don't want any duplicates, _right_?

Karma taps the pink - _so_ fucking _pink_ \- page in front of her and Amy fiddles with the straw in what has become _her_ shake and Lauren groans and Reagan scans the table for a knife or a spoon and _Goddammit_ Amy hid them _again_ and Lucy…. Well…

 _She_ looks at Karma in much the same way Reagan remembers _Karma_ looking at _Amy_ and no, not thinking about that _at all_.

But there is _so much_ to think of, Karma tells them, at least when it comes to names. There is, for example, the issue of tradition vs. modernity. Old school classics vs. new celebrity inspired hotness. Different spellings and accidental cultural appropriation and potential future siblings.

"And other kids," Karma says with a slow, sad shake of her head. "If you don't account for the possible meanness of other kids…"

Well, then you do something silly. Like naming your kids Karma and Zen and no, Reagan doesn't say that _out loud_.

A promise is a promise.

Karma scribbles out one name and moves another one up from near the bottom of the list, staring at it in all its pinkness and she does this _all the time_. Every day the list is changing and every _few_ days it's a new piece of paper - Reagan swears each one is pinker than the last - and one day #1 is #10 and #3 is #5 and then, by the end of the week, #10 is #6 and #7 is #9 and _11_ is the number of beers Reagan thinks she's gonna need if she has to listen to Karma talk about the fucking list one more fucking _time_.

"What do you think," Karma asks Amy and Lucy and Lauren - she's _learned_ \- "of Anna?"

_Go away, Anna._

_And take the fucking list with you._

"I like it," Lucy says - and oh, there's a _shock_ \- and yes, she's totally got that 'I like _it_ , but not as much as I like _you_ ' look on her face that Karma either doesn't see or doesn't understand or, more likely, doesn't know _what the fuck to do with_ and you know, what?

Scratch 11. This is gonna take at least a case.

"Meh," Lauren mutters, munching on a fry to avoid talking. (Smart girl.)

" _I_ think it's the name of Reagan's first ex," Amy says, which doesn't really matter to anyone except her and since she'll probably spend like _no_ time with The Spawn, that's really not all that important. "And," she says, "unless you want God-daddy Shane singing 'do you wanna build a snowman' on perpetual repeat, you should probably reconsider that one."

Ah.. Shane.

Shane doesn't think about the list or, truthfully, about much of anything these days. He's too busy _getting_ busy and no, it doesn't help him forget the Duke dumped him and no, it doesn't help heal his broken heart - his first and _by God_ he swears it'll be his _last_ \- and yes, that is totally disrupting his whole 'get over by getting under' worldview but he'll think of that _later_.

You know. When he runs out of boys. So… yeah… that might be a while.

Karma glances up from the list, looking over at Shane, sitting at the counter talking to yet another guy none of them have ever seen before and she shakes her head.

How, she wonders, could anyone _ever_ think of Shane and father - even if it's only _God_ father - in the same sentence?

So, Anna drops from #3 to #25 and by next week she'll be off the list. Poor, poor, poor Anna.

"Bryce?"

It's Amy's turn to roll her eyes _and_ groan, Lauren sighs, and even Lucy crinkles her nose - but still with a _smile_ \- but Karma gets the hint and #5 becomes #50 (yes, _fifty_ ) on the back of the page, at the bottom and _seriously_ …

 _Fifty_.

Eliza (#7) and Jordan (#11) and Sansa (#26) are all quickly dismissed as too old fashioned and too pornstar and too _are you fucking kidding me_ and _Sansa but not Arya, really now?_ Lily - as in _How I Met Your Mother_ and not _Harry Potter_ because, apparently, Karma doesn't know how to _read_ \- and Jean and Lesley and Caro _lyn_ all drop too and some others, like Jane and Vanessa and, inexplicably, Siobhan, all rise.

Kinda like that something Reagan feels in the back of her throat.

"You know," she says, risking a comment and causing eight eyes to snap her way in shock and awe, "the baby's not due for like three more months, right?"

She _thinks_ it's three months. It's something like that, anyway, something in the general vicinity cause she remembers it's August cause Reagan _remembers_ August.

No matter how hard she works to forget it.

August, Reagan's decided is her own personal hell. It's not bad enough that it's August in Texas and so it's, you know, _hot_. But now August is a new Booker arriving and Amy…

She can't even _think_ it, let alone say it. Reagan can't even get her brain to form the 'l-word' even though she knows it's coming, it's getting here faster and faster and there's nothing she can do about it or the pain, the kind she feels now even thinking _about_ thinking about it or the kind she's _gonna_ feel

Well. There _is_. But she's not asking Amy to stay. And she's not breaking up with her.

Reagan's sure of _that_. Well… at least _one_ of those 'that's'. And yeah, _which_ one changes from day to day and see, this is why she avoided dating high school girls and yes, that _is_ why and no, it's got nothing to do with just never happening to find one that was hot _and_ smart _and_ not that special brand of high school crazy, at least not until she found Amy, and yes, she _knows_ Amy doesn't _exactly_ fit all three.

But Reagan likes her crazy. She _loves_ it, actually and yup… it's gonna be _hell_. Total fucking hell.

"I know _that_ ," Karma says and even Reagan - as distracted as she is - picks up on the effort the other girl puts into _only_ saying it and not _snapping_ it and, she supposes, she should feel kinda honored, like maybe she should stand up on the table and yell it to the world (or at least to Vashti.)

 _She likes me! Karma Ashcroft_ likes _me! At least enough be semi-nice and, considering where we started, that's like true fucking_ love!

Reagan stays in her seat and doesn't move an inch. Let Vashti find her own headlines.

"But it's important," Karma says, tapping her finger on the list even as she picks up her fork, finally remembering she's got a salad to eat.

A salad.

It should be noted… so fucking _noted_ … that Karma is at _Planter's_. She's at Planter's with _Amy_ who's already finished _her_ burger and started on Reagan's. She's at Planter's with Amy and Lauren - the queen of no carbs - who's halfway through a plate of fries that would make Ronald McDonald jealous and she's eating a _salad_.

With dressing _on the side_ and oh, fuck _me,_ sometimes Reagan really wonders what Amy sees in the girl. She really does.

"In three months, she'll be here," Karma says. "And she has to have a name, she can't go around just being Baby Girl Booker cause… ugh."

Reagan has to agree. For entirely different reasons, she's sure, but yes. Ugh. Totes ugh. All the ugh.

"Things are changing, Reagan," Karma says, taking a tiny tiny _Jesus_ that's not _even_ a bite out of a tomato, like she's terrified that every nibble will add another inch to her waist. "And change, it always happens faster than you think." She gives up on the tomato - freeing it to live a healthy and never eaten life until Lucy snatches it up while Karma's not looking - and stabs her fork into a piece of lettuce, dipping it lightly (she _touched_ it, that's _it_ ) into that dressing on the side. "And three months from now, the baby will be here and Liam will be a _dad_ and and Amy and I will be in New Orleans and it'll seem like it was just yesterday when we had this conversation."

Karma doesn't see Amy tense, she doesn't see the way her best friend's grip on Reagan's burger tightens just a hair. She doesn't see that the bite Amy eventually takes is small, at least for _her_ , or that she takes like a year to chew and swallow and, you know, _breathe_. Karma misses all that.

But Reagan doesn't.

"Oh, that reminds me," Karma says, that same bite of salad - touched as it was by the dressing that no one can see dripping from it - hovering in the air as she turns to Amy. "Did you check with your mom? Can she get that time off next month to go with us to visit campus? I've got a whole list of things we need to check out while we're there."

Karma shuffles aside one list as she reaches down to her purse for the other and so she misses Amy's eyes darting to Reagan, but _no one_ misses Reagan standing suddenly, mumbling something about need to use the restroom except _those_ are in the back which is _that_ way and _this_ way - the way she's _going_ \- is nothing but the front door and she's almost out of it when she hears Karma behind her at the table.

"Was it something I said?"

* * *

Of course it was something Karma said. In the all the years, she's known Reagan, Karma's pretty sure it's always been something she said.

Though, this time - maybe for the _first_ time - she doesn't really know what.

"We have an agreement," Amy says, pushing away her plate. "Me and Reagan. We don't talk about Clement or New Orleans or August. Like ever. Like _at all_."

So, that's the _what_.

Lucy nods as if that makes all the sense in the world. Karma knows her well enough - and not _just_ in the ways no one likes to think about, they do actually _talk_ \- to know that that is her total bullshit nod (everyone's got a fucking nod), the one she gives people when she knows she's supposed to agree but, really, she thinks they're being total stupid idiots.

Karma would go with dumbfucks, but to each their own.

In this case though, she kinda agrees with Amy and Reagan. Karma _gets it_. Head in the sand, don't talk about it, just pretend it isn't happening and yeah, that hurts like hell in the end, but in the meantime?

In the meantime you Facebook stalk your best friend's new girlfriend and storm over to said best friend's house determined to reclaim your rightful place and end up with an eyeful of something you can't ever unsee and so, yeah, maybe Lucy's got a _point_.

Karma tries to apologize - oh, look, something _new_ \- but Amy waves her off. "Not your fault," she says. "You didn't know and you couldn't have since, you know, no talking about it."

Still, Karma _could_ have known, if she'd just thought about it for like half a second. Or if, you know, she was Amy. But, if either of those things were true, then not only would Karma have known not to mention the 'A' word or the 'c' word, but then she'd also know that sometimes it's best to just let Reagan be, to let her stew and mope a little and _then_ try to fix it.

But Karma doesn't know that and, even if she _did_ know, she's fuck all at waiting and so that's probably (read: _exactly_ ) why she finds herself standing on the edge of Amy and Reagan's park, silently watching the older girl swing.

"You _can_ come in, you know," Reagan says. "It's a public park. I don't actually own it or anything, though… how cool would _that_ be?"

Karma shuffles slowly across the last bits of grass between her and that invisible line that separates the park from… _not_ the park. She's been here before, they all have, and she knows that things are different between her and Reagan now, but still…

"I'm sorry," Reagan says and but still _that_. Karma has to lean against the slide so she doesn't pass out from the shock. Reagan just apologized.

To _her_.

Karma takes a quick and, hopefully, discreet look around the park to make sure she's not being punked. "For what?" she asks, still not quite convinced Ashton Kutcher isn't going to pop out at any moment but, she supposes, if he brings Mila Kunis… She shakes her head and takes a couple more tentative steps forward, slipping down onto the swing next to Reagan. "I was the one who said the stupid thing. _Again_."

Reagan laughs softly and Karma smiles, feeling some of the tension slowly floating away. "I shouldn't have just _left_ ," Reagan says. "It wasn't you… OK… it wasn't _just_ you." Now, they're on more familiar ground. "I've been being a bitch anyway," she says, "about the list. Even if I haven't _said_ it, I've been _thinking_ it and I know that's not the same, but it kinda is and either way, it isn't fair. Not to you."

Seriously, Ashton, where you at?

Karma's not surprised. She knows Reagan hates the list, she's known that all along. But Reagan never said it and so Karma didn't either. Call it _their_ 'gentleperson's agreement."

"Is it Liam?" she asks. "Is it because it's his kid?"

Reagan stares out over the view for a long moment before slowly shaking her head. "No," she says. "I mean, don't get me wrong. There's like any number of guys, like _infinity_ number of guys whose kids I'd rather be naming. But...it isn't about _him_. Or you. Or the kid."

Karma pushes against the ground with her feet, gliding back through the air. She's fuck all at waiting, but even she can tell - sometimes - when it's _needed_.

"Liam's going to be a dad," Reagan says, with almost a sense of reverence. "A _dad_. Like my dad or your dad or Bruce or… well… hopefully _not_ like Jack."

At least they can agree on _that_.

Reagan grips the chains of her swing just a little tighter. "He's not gonna be one of us, anymore, not even in the tiny ways he has been," she says. "He's gonna be in this world of diapers and two am bottles and mommy and me classes where he will, hopefully, not try and pick up any of the other moms."

Karma can't help the tiny snort that slips out and Reagan laughs too. But they both know she's so very _right_.

"Lolo's going to Yale," Reagan says, choking up even further on the chains. " _Yale_. That's like some hardcore _Gilmore Girls_ shit, that's like half a country away and, let's be _real_ , Yale and Austin, Texas are _more_ than half a _world_ apart."

They are. But if anyone can bridge the gap - or make everyone else bridge it _for_ her - Karma knows it's Lauren.

The chains swing free as Reagan hops down from the swing, her feet kicking up a scuffing of loose dirt from the ground. "It's all new worlds, Karma. Liam's a dad, Lolo's a Yaleie, Shane's gonna be banging his way cross the state, Theo's off to play ball, Lucy's gonna be out in Cali, and you and Amy…"

Head meet sand.

"New Orleans isn't that far," Karma says. She's trying - trying to comfort Reagan and talk about new _worlds_ \- but It's weak, it really is, though it's the best she's got and if _that's_ her best, well, she knows she's in trouble.

"511.9 miles," Reagan says, taking a few steps toward the hill overlooking all the places she _used_ to know. "It's a seven hour and thirty-six minute drive and the average flight _takes_ about half that but _costs_ about three hundred bucks." She grinds a shoe against the grass, digging her toes into a soft spot. "With what I make now, I could probably swing once, maybe twice a semester."

Two times in almost five months. That _sucks_. That sucks right out fucking loud. "There's Thanksgiving," Karma offers. "And I think we get like a four day weekend in October and Amy and I could easily drive home then." She tallies it up on her fingers. "So that's _at least_ four times," she says. "That's like almost once a month."

Reagan nods cause she's already done _that_ math. "Yeah," she says. "An almost once a month interruption. A once a month reminder that the world she lives in every day…" She shakes her head and shoves her hands in her pockets, trying not to let Karma see them shake. "Amy's _so_ gonna kill it, you know. This whole college thing, she's gonna absolutely _kill_ it."

Just because they haven't talked about it, well, that doesn't mean Reagan hasn't _thought_ about it. And that doesn't mean she hasn't envisioned the world Amy's going to be living in - nope, correction, the world Amy's going to be _thriving_ in - every day since that letter came, the one Amy kept a secret for _weeks_.

As at home as she is behind her turntables, as comfortable as she is spinning the nights away, Reagan knows Amy's gonna _smoke_ that in college. She's got the brains and the curiosity and the need to… learn… and to know and to grow and all of that has been bubbling inside her, like a Coke that got shook up and it's just waiting for some poor sucker to twist that cap so it can just fucking _blow_.

"It won't happen right away," Reagan says. "At first, we'll talk every day," she says. "Or text, at least. It'll be 'morning, baby' and then 'how's your day, honey' and then 'night, my love'."

"I'm sure it will be more than _that_ ," Karma says, slipping off her swing. "I mean, come on, you two text more than that when you're sitting _next_ to each other."

"Yeah," Reagan laughs, but it doesn't echo like it usually does. "Maybe. At first, probably. I'm totally gonna want to hear about her day, obviously. About her classes and her homework and the crazy ass professors she's gotta deal with."

Karma nods. "Exactly. And she's gonna want to hear about the fight that broke out at your DJ gig and the nasty food you had to serve at a party and how your lunch went with Farrah cause you know you're gonna have to have like three of those a week."

Three? Try _six_. Farrah's already making reservations.

Reagan knows she's right, she knows Karma has a point or several and that, for once, they're actually _good_. But…

(Told you. _Always_ the but.)

"But what happens when she misses a call or a text?" Reagan asks, even if it really _isn't_ a question and even if there's absolutely no doubt in either of them that it would be _Amy_ who would do the missing. "She'll be busy with a project or a class or a club or even just friends, the kind that are, you know, actually _there_. And she'll get caught up and she won't hear her phone in her pocket and she won't read the message until two am and by then she'll be so tired…"

"Reagan -"

She shakes Karma off, cause she knows, she knows everything Amy's friend - because _that_ is what she is, above _all else_ \- would say: 'You're looking for trouble.' 'You know Amy will always have time for you.' 'You know she _loves_ you.'

Yes, she is _looking_ and yes she knows Amy will always have time for her and _of course_ she knows Amy loves her.

But just because you're looking for trouble doesn't mean it's not there to be found. And it's not a question of Amy _having_ time, it's a question of _making_ the time and - and this is the worst, the absolute _worst_ \- _so what_ if Amy loves her?

Jack loved Farrah. Martin loved her mother. Rebecca loved Bruce and Liam loved Karma and Brad loved Angelina and those all ended oh so well.

And really? The 'well' part's got nothing to do with it.

It's the _end_. They _ended_. That's what counts.

"Amy's going to have a life, Karma," Reagan says. "She's going to have a life _there_ and she can't… she won't be _able_ to keep living a life _here_ when she's _there_ and I wouldn't want her to, she deserves… she deserves better than _that_.

There are times when Karma still wonders - just for tiny moments - if Reagan is really right for Amy, if she's really what's best for her.

This?

Not one of those times.

Reagan pushes past the swings, headed back toward the restaurant, even if Karma's got no doubt that's _not_ where she's headed. "Reagan, wait."

The older girl shakes her head. " _That's_ what Amy's going to do," she says. "She's gonna wait and wait and wait to do what's best for her. And she's going to wait to make the hard call and she'll _wait_ because waiting… she thinks it'll make it easier." Reagan pauses by the slide and braces herself against it with one trembling hand. "She's gonna let the currents take her… take _us_ … and let us drift and drift and drift until I've washed up ashore and I can't see her anymore, out there, sailing for the new fucking world and I'm going to _let_ her cause I can't…"

She shakes her head again and pushes off the slide and stalks up the hill and doesn't even bother asking Karma to not say anything to Amy cause they both know even if Karma made that _promise_?

It'd last about ten minutes.

And worse than that?

Even if Karma broke the promise?

Nothing would change. They - Amy and Reagan - still wouldn't talk about it and their heads would be buried neck fucking deep in that sand because Reagan can't and Amy won't and Karma doesn't know what to do about _that_ but her phone is in her hand even before she reaches the bottom of the hill.

_Ashcroft: Scrap Marriage. We've got bigger problems._

_Cooper: Oh, fuck all. It_ was _something you said, wasn't it?_

No. It wasn't.

Not yet, anyway.


	45. Chapter 45

Amy doesn't understand.

Not that _that's_ anything new, it's not like it's the first time (or second time or third time or fourth time or the _you get the fucking idea_ time) someone could say that about her cause, let's face it, there's a _lot_ Amy doesn't understand.

The list - and it's not a Karma list, but it damn near could be - is long and varied. There's the appeal of kale, why anyone would willingly listen to reggae, and how on Earth anyone could think blondes have more fun (like, _seriously_ , has anyone checked her life circa _all of fucking high school_?) And then there's math. As in all of it. As in everything beyond addition and subtraction and even, sometimes, _those_ and it's not like she hasn't tried to learn it or even had help with it.

Lauren spent the better part of two years in high school going over the quadratic equation and the Pythagorean theorem (as in over and over and fucking _over_ ) and the only thing Amy ever really understood - and still _understands_ \- is that a-squared plus b-squared equals her needing a fucking drink-squared.

"I have a calculator," Amy said - also over and over and fucking _over_ \- ignoring Lauren's rolling eyes and protestations about broadening horizons and well rounded education and critical fucking thinking. "A calculator and a cell phone. A fucking _smart_ phone, and both of them can do math a thousand and one times faster than old Pythagoras ever even dreamed of," Amy said, and that was the point at which Lauren almost always gave up.

Not that _Amy_ was done.

"And, more importantly," she said, always punctuating this part with a wagging finger, "if I had a dime for every time I have ever needed or _will_ ever _need_ to find the length of the third side of a triangle, do you know what I'd have?"

Lauren never answered. She'd learned the math on that one, the law of diminishing returns.

"I'd have zero fucking dimes," Amy said. " _That's_ what I'd have."

Clearly, Amy did understand the basics of currency.

So there's math, _obviously_ , and kale and reggae. But there's more personal stuff too. Like, _for instance_ , Amy doesn't understand - like _at all_ \- how the whole Karma and Lucy thing happened.

"Karma was faking," she says to Lauren or Shane or sometimes Reagan, but only when she's drunk or exhausted or looking for a fight and no, that has nothing to do with how fantastic (like even more than usual) makeup sex with Reagan is. "She was _faking_ and now she's _kissing_ and just how the _hell_ does that happen and no, I'm not _jealous_ , I'm just _confused_ , cause Karma's _kissing_ and it's my _sister_ and stop giving me that look, I'm just trying to _understand_."

And you can _so_ add in why everyone (read: _especially_ Reagan) thinks Amy ought to let that particular sleeping dog just fucking lie to the _top_ of the list of things that Ms. Raudenfeld just doesn't understand.

(Even if she really does. Like _really_ really.) (But it's _Karma_. And _Lucy_. And _seriously_ , W the absolute F?)

More? You need more?

Oh, there's _more_.

Amy doesn't get - like _at all_ \- why Lauren is so pissed at Theo for choosing to go to a good school (at least he's _going_ and not just _staying_ and no, she's never said _that_ out loud and if you think she might, well, where the fuck have you been for the last two years?) She doesn't have the first damn clue how Bruce puts up with her mother's continued fixation on everything Jack does.

Or why Jack does _anything_.

She is utterly - like 100% times infinity (and beyond) - bewildered by the sheer physics of her girlfriend's eyebrows. There hasn't been one moment since the _first_ moment when she's understood even a little of why Reagan is with her. And, more than all the rest, Amy doesn't understand how anyone could have ever cheated on Reagan.

"I get the literal _how_ ," she told Lauren once - one of the many many _many_ times Lauren wondered if being real sisters was worth it (she always decided yes, but still…) - "like I understand the mechanics of it, but seriously? The _desire_ , the _want_ to. I just don't get it."

What she _does_ get?

She's incredibly grateful that someone (hi Shelby) (you _bitch_ ) was that _stupid_.

So, yeah, there's a lot of things Amy doesn't understand and now, right fucking _now_ , you can add a tiny velvet box, held out in front of her - daring her, calling to her, a fucking Siren song of temptation she's barely resisting - to that list.

Also: how Reagan could think that now (right fucking _now_ , as noted) is a good time to propose given, you know, that they just got back from visiting Amy's soon to be new home. The one that's 511.9 miles away (she can use Google Maps, too) and, really, that's more like a _world_ and, last time Amy checked, that world wasn't going to be including Reagan.

Stupid world. Stupid fucking waste of a world.

"No." Reagan says and Amy nods, even though it's not a question. "No," Reagan says, again, and it's _still_ not a question but Amy nods again anyway which, to her, seems at least slightly counterintuitive (at best) and fucking _rude_ (at worst), like she's not just saying no.

She's _hammering_ it. She's driving that no nail right between those perfect brows with every fucking nod, but she can't stop.

She's a motherfucking bobblehead.

"It's not that I don't want to," Amy says, finally finding a word that isn't 'no'. And it really is the truth, she does _want_ to. If there's anything Amy _does_ understand, it's the very simple - and yet massively complicated - idea that she wants, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with Reagan.

Just, you know, not right now.

Reagan arches a brow (fucking _physics_ ) and Amy does her best not to get distracted. "I _do_ ," she says and no, the irony of _that_ phrase is not lost on her. "I just… I mean… I didn't…"

She sighs and drops her eyes, but not far enough that she misses Reagan taking a step back, just _one_ , crossing her arms over her chest, the tiny box (Goddamn Pandora, that's what that shit is) disappearing from view.

"No," Reagan says, mulling the word over, rolling it round and round, letting it sink and soak in.

"Reagan, baby -"

And if there's one _other_ thing Amy understands, it's that _that_ \- fucking _baby_? - was just about the worst thing she could have said, and if she didn't understand it?

Allow Reagan to explain.

"Baby?" Amy tips her head back and curses the fucking stars for letting her speak. "So now this is a 'baby' moment?"

Baby moments (aka a lesson in the Amy Raudenfeld Handbook for Dumbasses):

_Reagan, baby, it doesn't bother me that Karma's kissing my sister._

_Reagan, baby, of course your ass is still bangin in those sweatpants._

_Reagan, baby, I know you wanted to go away this weekend but Karma…_

_Reagan, baby…_

Amy watches as that one brow goes from cocked and loaded to full on ready for space launch and she backpedals furiously, even if she doesn't actually, you know, _move_. "Let me explain," she says (pleads.) "Please?"

Reagan says nothing and Amy knows that's as close to permission as she's gonna get.

"It's not that I don't want to," she says _again_ and Amy knows that every word out of her mouth is a tiny little shovel that just keeps digging and digging and _digging_. "I do. I _so_ do. But, I just didn't… see it coming."

Ain't that the fucking truth.

(and for once, with Amy, it might actually be the _whole_ truth)

"There was no warning," she says and there wasn't. There wasn't a warning, there wasn't a hint or a moment when even the thought of it - marriage - crossing Reagan's mind crossed Amy's at _all_. There were no funny looks from Lauren, there wasn't a single attempt at subtle probing from Karma (or, you know, _not_ so subtle, cause, well, _Karma_ ) and there was just no way Reagan had been planning this and at least one of them didn't know. "And you've just been so distant," Amy _adds_ and yup, she still sucks at math, and oh, look, the first ever _pair_ of fully orbital eyebrows.

"I've been…" Reagan takes another step back and turns, facing off to the side, looking out over the view they've shared so many nights. "Distant," she mutters but Amy notes that, as annoyed as she sounds?

She's not disagreeing.

"You have," Amy says, pushing her luck, yes. But really, what does she have to lose at this point? "And it's not like I've been doing much to fix it," she says quietly. "We've both been ignoring the gorilla in the room so long, we never even noticed the wall it was putting up between us."

"Elephant," Reagan says, not even needing to look to see the confused look crossing Amy's face. "It's the elephant in the room. It's bigger than a gorilla and less mobile, so it just kinda sits there taking up space and… and it's a figure of fucking speech so… just never mind."

Elephants. Gorillas. Fucking _monkeys_ , that's all they are. Monkeys playing around and keeping secrets and not talking about the things that actually matter.

"Honestly?" Amy says. "I would've been less surprised by a break up."

And oh, why does she ever fucking _speak_.

But, again, it should be noted that Reagan doesn't say a word in argument. And Amy does note. Oh, how she fucking notes.

"It's crossed your mind," she says, "hasn't it? Ending this before I lea… before I go to school."

Reagan stares at the ground, the box squeezed tight in her hand. "Leave," she whispers. "The word you were looking for, the one you couldn't _say_? It's 'leave'. Before you _leave_."

Apparently they're not ignoring the elephant anymore. They're fucking _riding_ it.

"Reagan, you know that's not what I'm doing," Amy says. She takes one hesitant step towards her girlfriend, who doesn't even so much as move. "I'm not _leaving_. I'm going to college. Yes, it's another state and it's far away and it won't be easy but…"

Amy trails off, no fucking idea where she's going with this, but she can't help remembering that, historically, the trail off has never been their friend.

"But it's what you have to do," Reagan says. "It's your dream and I want it for you." She chuckles and shakes her head. "Sometimes, I think I want it for you more than you do."

"Rea... " Amy closes the distance, her arms snaking around Reagan and she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding as she feels the older girl sink into her embrace. "I love you," she whispers. "You… you're my everything. And I know you think this is the way to keep that, to make sure college and distance doesn't ruin it… ruin _us_. But marriage? I mean someday, maybe -"

Reagan's head snaps up and she swivels in Amy's grasp. "Wait… _what_?

"I said you're my everything and I know what you're trying to do and why, but -"

Amy's arms fall to her side as Reagan takes a step back, holding up a hand to shush her. "No," she says (irony) (again). "Not that part. The _other_ part." She watches as Amy goes over it in her head, slowly retracing her words. But, as usual, impatience wins out. "Marriage," Reagan says. "You said _marriage_."

"Well, yeah," Amy says with a small nod toward the box. "That's what I was trying to say. We can't get married or even engaged. Not now. Not for this." She shakes her head. "That's why I was so surprised. I didn't even know you were _thinking_ about it."

"Well," Reagan says, reaching out and taking Amy's hand, dropping the box into it. "That's probably because I _wasn't_."

* * *

_Seven Years and One Month Ago_

The room is small. Like teeny small. Teeny tiny, smaller than her apartment small. Like small enough that Amy's room back home might laugh at it (and _swallow_ it), like small enough to make the 'size doesn't matter' joke die on Reagan's tongue.

It would just be unnecessarily cruel.

Reagan's not sure - cause she's never actually _seen_ it - but she suspects that even the Spawn's nursery might be bigger than this.

(The Spawn = the baby = a name most definitely _not_ on the list = exactly what Reagan's going to call it - in her head - until they come up with a name.)

(And by 'they' she 100% means Karma and by 'until' she 110% means _always_. Like forever.)

She's gotta think, even if she can't be _sure_ \- not Spawn sure - that the nursery is bigger than this, again, not that she's seen it. And yes, that's been mentioned (once or twice) (usually by Karma) (and by 'usually' she means… you fucking _know_ what she means, we've been doing this shit long enough, no?) but it does bear repeating. You see, Reagan's the _only_ one who hasn't seen it.

And it should be noted that _that_ isn't hyperbole or exaggeration, not in the slightest. This isn't one of those 'only one's' like 'oh, you're the only one who's never seen that movie' - like Amy and _Princess Bride,_ once upon a time - when there's literally _thousands_ of other people who have never actually seen it.

Reagan really is the _only_ one.

Karma's seen it, which is to be expected since it's in _her house_. Not that _that's_ weird at all, nope not one single tiny bit. Shane's seen it too, but - again - kinda expected since lately he basically lives with the Ashcrofts and no, that's not weird _either_.

(It _is_.) (It's _weird_.) (So fucking weird.) (So weird that even Liam has commented on it, going as far as to outright ask Shane if he'd gone straight - Karmasexual, _that_ was his term and Amy almost fucking _died_ on the spot - and yeah, Shane might have brushed it off and laughed at the very thought, but…)

(He might have laughed just a bit _too_ hard.)

So, Karma and Shane have seen it but they _live_ with it. And Liam's seen it cause, well, _duh_ , and Lauren's seen it (which means _Theo_ has seen it) because, well, _Lauren_.

Cause Lauren and cause her weird bond with Karma and yeah, Lolo was still Reagan's BFF but this thing with her and Karma… it's…

Weird.

What's weird _er_?

Farrah's seen it.

_Farrah_.

And Amy's seen it _because_ Farrah's seen it.

"Molly asked me to come see the nursery," Farrah said out of the blue, one Wednesday and Reagan remembers it was a Wednesday because Wednesday's are spaghetti night and the kitchen already smelled of Bruce's special sauce - a phrase Reagan never thought she would _ever_ utter or _like_ \- and Amy was already trying to sneak a taste out of the pot.

"What?" Amy said, spoon dripping red sauce onto the stovetop and _God,_ could she _ever_ eat _anything_ without dripping _something_?

(Obviously, the answer is 'not if she's doing it right and you _so_ need to get your mind out of the gutter.)

(Not that Reagan wasn't thinking the same exact thing.)

Farrah took the spoon from her daughter before Amy splattered the floor - again - and dropped it in the sink. "She asked me to come check out the nursery. She said she wants another mother's opinion and, apparently, the other PFLAG moms don't have my… taste." Amy rolled her eyes and Reagan chuckled, both of them knowing exactly how Molly had hooked Farrah.

With her? Flattery really will get you everywhere.

"It would be impolite for me not to go," Farrah said, lightly slapping Amy's hand as she tried to filch a piece of garlic bread from the loaf by the sink. "And I am not going _alone_."

It was simple, Farrah said, trying to convince her daughter to accompany her. A five minute visit, she promised. In and out, no harm, no foul, quick like bunny rabbits, done in a flash…

"Fuck it," she muttered under her breath, running clean out of cliches. "Either you go with me, or there's no camping trip for you and Reagan next weekend."

Reagan could see the wheels spinning in her girlfriend's head as she remembered camping, which, really, was remembering the table and the bed and, oh, that spot on the rocks down by the lake where those two teenage boys stumbled upon them and finished off puberty in about ten seconds flat.

Which was three seconds longer than it took Reagan to finish off Amy once they realized they had an audience, but that was neither here nor there, because what was _here_ was Amy's intense desire to not go _there_ \- she hadn't been in Karma's house in months and that had been weird, at first, but now it was more… comfortable - but Farrah was holding all the cards.

So, yeah, Amy went. And then Bruce went because… well… Reagan's never been _sure_ why but she's got _ideas_ (mind, gutter, you get _that_ idea, right?) and then Jack - fucking _Jack_ \- went too (and oh, to have been a fly on the window for _that_ five minute car ride) because of the whole mentor-slash-father figure-slash-sure, he can be a dad to fucking _Liam_ thing and where Jack went (and where Karma was) then so went Lucy and so, yeah.

Only one.

Sometimes - usually when she's trying _not_ to think about it, which is like _all_ the times - Reagan thinks that's pretty much the sum total of what's going to happen to her. The only one. The only one not moving on, the only one not moving _up_. The only one not growing and not changing, the only one not _trying_.

The only one left.

(And not _just_ left _behind_ , though, yeah, that's the biggest bit of it all.)

So, she's never seen the nursery and she doesn't think she ever will, but she's gotta think it's bigger than this… room. If that's what you want to call it. Reagan can think of other words.

Hole. Closet. Dent in the fabric of space and time. Tiny little hidey hole. Cupboard under the fucking stairs and nobody's sending a 'Surprise! You're a wizard!' note here.

Oh. And one more.

Hell.

(That last one, obviously, has less to do with _size_ and more to do with _location_ , as in it's _not_ Austin, and kinda _everything_ to do with the way Karma and Molly are already softly whispering about where she and Amy can put their stuff and how cozy it will be and oh, yeah, cozy with the girl she was once in love with, cozy like no room to move or think or breathe, gonna be _on top_ of each other… yup…)

( _Hell_.)

Farrah leans against the door - like there's anywhere else she _could_ stand - and surveys the room with a quick ( _very_ quick) (like Barry fucking Allen wouldn't be able to keep up quick) sweep of her eyes.

"It's… homey," she says, her lips pressed in a tight smile and yes, Reagan can add 'homey' to her ever expanding list of synonyms for 'ridiculously fucking tiny'. And yes - again - she's totally noticing the way Farrah can't quite look at her, like her sorta-mom knows exactly what's going on inside her head. She probably does.

Farrah is a lot of things. Dumb ain't fucking one of them. But knowing what Reagan's thinking and being able to convince her that she's wrong are two very different things and, realistically, there's not much chance Farrah could pull it off.

Still… it might be nice if someone _tried_.

"It has character," Molly says - another synonym for the list - running a hand over the not _too_ rusted metal bed frame of the bottom bunk. "Or it _will_ , once the girls get through with it."

Reagan tunes out as Molly starts in with a list of things the girls can do - at least she knows now where Karma gets that particular habit - especially when that list _starts_ with taking the bunks apart and putting the beds side by side like a fucking _sleepover_.

Karma's standing at the other end of the beds and she, at least, has the courtesy to blanche at that idea and she shoots Reagan a quick look, one the older girl thinks is _supposed_ to say 'I'm sorry' and 'that's _not_ gonna happen' and, yeah, it's not like Reagan's really worried about _that_.

Much.

"It's a room," Karma says, steering her mother off the discussion of the beds and where to put them and how they'll be sleeping in them - cause, yeah, _sleeping_ is the concern - and back to more practical matters. "Dorm rooms aren't meant to be palaces," she says, forgetting (or trying to) the fucking _suite_ Lauren's got at Yale. "Besides, we'll be busy in the city and on campus and doing… you know… college things. We'll probably only stagger back in here for sleep and a shower."

Her eyebrow arches of its own accord, Reagan fucking _swears_.

"Shower _s_ ," Karma corrects, almost (but not quite) immediately. "Plural. One for me. One for her. Totally separate and not at all at the same time and yeah… so… "

Reagan shuts her eyes as a hush falls over the world - or at least this tiny (so fucking _tiny_ ) little corner of New Orleans. She tries to ignore it, to not let it steer her into thinking about how silent _her_ actual world is about to go.

And she remembers a time when she was so much better at trying.

It's Karma who breaks the silence - and oh, that's a _shock_ \- the desperation to salvage this trip before it… well… before it becomes everything they've all been expecting it to since pretty much the moment they left Austin, echoing in the pitch of her voice, cracking out almost an octave too high. "So," she creaks, pausing to cough and reset. "Maybe… we should go check out the rest of campus? I'm sure Amy's ready to sample the cafeteria, right Aimes?"

Eight eyes turns as one to look at Amy, who hasn't said a word or even moved - like, not even an _inch_ \- from her spot by the window since the moment they all dogpiled into the room. And none of them, except maybe Molly (who's still murmurring about the fucking _beds_ ) are surprised by what they see.

Reagan gets it first, of course, the moment she catches Amy's eyes. She's _so_ not surprised, not by the look - she expected it - but maybe a little by how much it still manages to break her heart, all her expectations be damned.

She sees it first and then it's Farrah, only a half a heartbeat in front of Karma and it's _her_ \- of all fucking people - who reaches out, one hand brushing gently against the back of Reagan's arm and it's supposed to be comforting, it's supposed to be a signal, a 'hey I'm still here' and a 'it's gonna be fine'. 'It's just a _look_ ' and 'there's nothing to worry about'.

But, really? All it is a sign. A fucking neon blinking billboard in the night, screaming that _that_ is utter bullshit, because there's _everything_ to worry about. Because that look? That one Amy's casting out the window - the one actually sort of _big_ part of the room, overlooking campus with the flickering and blinking lights of the city in the distance - that look isn't _just_ anything.

It's _everything_. That look speaks volumes, even if it only says two words.

_I'm home_.

(Technically, that's _three_ , but who the fuck is really counting?)

For the first time she can ever remember, Reagan looks _away_ from Amy. She _has_ to, she has to drop her eyes as if she's been staring too long into the sun and oh _fuck no_ , she is _not_ going to cry, not here, not now, not in front of… well… any of them. She's not. She _won't_.

She already is.

It's Karma, again - and fuck all, when did she get a clue? - who bails her out. "Come on," she says, crossing the room and tugging Amy by the arm towards the open door. "Greasy college food awaits," she says, ushering her best friend and Molly and Farrah out into the hall, glancing back one last time at Reagan, staying behind to collect herself.

Alone.

Oh, like _that's_ going to help.

But then, like not even a minute later, it's Karma - _again_ \- coming back through the door, a half crumpled paper in her hand, as she strides across the room (it's like two _baby_ steps, that's all it takes) and shoving it into Reagan's chest.

"You're an idiot."

Reagan blinks back the tears, her hand coming up to take the paper, crumpled as it is, noting, barely, a bunch of those little tear off tabs at the bottom. "What?"

"An idiot," Karma repeats and they both remember a time when she wouldn't have _dared_ to say something like that to Reagan - it was right after the time when that sort of thing was _all_ Karma _could_ say to her - and there's a look in her eyes that Reagan doesn't quite recognize.

Right up until she does and it clicks where she's seen it before. The night of the party. Right before Karma kissed Amy and it's been so long since she even _thought_ of that, but now it comes rushing back, water crashing over the levee, and oh… this… whatever it _is_ , it really isn't going to go well.

Color her fucking surprised.

"You think this is her new world," Karma says. Her hands are on her hips and she's trying to seem all determined and tough, but that look in her eyes dispels that right fucking quick. It's a look of sad resignation, of knowing what she _has_ to do, but really not expecting it to amount to fuck all in the long run. "You think she's coming here and it's all going to be new and different and exciting and it is. But you think… you think she's going to _find_ something here."

Something. Someone. All the somethings, all the someones.

Reagan sags down onto the bottom bunk, the paper still clutched in her hand. "You saw her, Karma," she says. "She's not _going_ to find something here. She already _has_."

There isn't much Karma can say in argument. They both saw it. There's no arguing with the truth. But when the hell has even the cold hand of the truth slapping her right across the cheek ever stopped Karma?

"You're right," she says and yeah, _that's_ making Reagan feel just a metric shit-ton better, like _seriously_ , go for a career in counseling, Karms. "Amy has found something here. A chance to be something other than _her_."

Reagan wants to ask - she wants to fucking _scream_ \- just what the hell is wrong with just being _her_? Amy. Shrimps.

_Hers_.

"Can you imagine, Reagan?" Karma asks. "A chance to be something other than the girl Jack left and the girl Farrah basically tried to replace. Something beyond the once fake lesbian and the 'my' in Karmy."

Or the 'my' in Reamy. Same difference, right?

"And don't you even go _there_ ," Karma snaps - she's legit _pissed_ and Reagan didn't see _that_ coming - staring down at the older girl still slumped on the bed. "Don't go substituting Reamy for Karmy in your head, because we both fucking know it's not the same. It never was."

Damn. When Karma goes for insight, she goes _hard_.

"This is everything Amy's dreamed of since she was seven," Karma says and Reagan doesn't have to ask why _that_ age, she can still see that fucking photo on the living room wall as clear as day in her head. "But see, here's the thing, Reagan," she says, squatting down to force herself into Reagan's vision. "Those dreams we have when we're little?" Karma drops her head with a slow, sad shake. "Sometimes, we get stuck in them and we can't see past them and we can't understand that… when we grow up, those dreams should too."

Yeah… not so sure they're talking about Amy anymore. At least not _only_ Amy.

"She gets that, you know," Karma says, smiling, but barely. "Amy's dreams… they grew. Bigger than getting out of Austin, bigger than college, bigger…" She shakes her head again, the 'than me' left unsaid. "She _understands_ that." Karma stands and walks to the window, looking out at the city. It's everything they talked about since they were little, everything two tiny girls once thought meant… everything.

But everything tiny must grow. And everything that grows…

"It changes," Karma says softly, focused on a light in the far distance, a blinking speck just under the horizon. "Time changes and people change and priorities…" She leans against the glass, close enough to blur her own reflection and yeah, _that_ seems just about right. "What was it you called this?" she asks. "Amy's whole new world?"

Reagan nods. "It is," she says. "A whole world of possibilities." She doesn't know how else to put it, to make it obvious that it isn't the _people_ she's worried about, it isn't the thought of Amy falling in love with someone else that scares her.

It's the thought of Amy falling into _life_. Without her.

"It's a world of chances, Karma," Reagan says. "So many chances for her, just like you said."

It's _almost_ funny and Karma almost _laughs_. _This,_ of all the times, is finally the time Reagan chooses to listen to her. "Yeah," she says without turning around. " _A_ world. But that's just it. It's _a_ world… not _her_ world." Karma turns from the window, staring at Reagan, and the older girl can see her heart - and it's not quite breaking, but it's not quite all in one piece, either - right there in her eyes.

Sometimes… _usually_ when she least expects it and _always_ when it seems most capable of absolutely _wrecking_ her - Reagan understands _perfectly_ why Amy's never let Karma go.

"This is all wonderful and great and so many chances and it's going to be an incredible time for her," Karma says. "But _you're_ her world, Reagan. You have been since the moment she met you."

"Karma -"

"No," Karma says, cutting her off. "You're not going to tell me different because… well… you're just _not_. It's the truth and we both know it." And they do, even if one of them never wanted to believe it and the other one… _can't_. "She would drop this," Karma says. "She would walk away from school, give up on here, move back to Austin… Amy would throw it all away for you. All you'd have to do is say the word."

Reagan doesn't offer up an 'I never would'. Why bother? No one goes around telling everyone that the Earth is round or water is wet.

What is understood? Doesn't really need to be discussed.

Karma steps back softly toward the bed, reaching down to tap the crumpled paper in Reagan's hand. "Amy would give up everything for you," she says. "She already _did_."

_I choose you. I choose us._

Reagan glances down at the paper, at the tabs at the bottom, the phone number printed on them in neat twelve point font. At the words, just beneath Karma's finger, still brushing the paper.

"Maybe, Reagan," Karma says. "It's time you returned the favor."

* * *

Amy doesn't understand.

Yes, we've been here before. Recently, even. Some things… well… they just don't really ever change.

But, apparently, some things - and some _people_ \- well… they _do_.

The box - now open and resting in the palm of Amy's hand - doesn't hold the ring that Amy was both expecting and fearing. She's relieved, really she is, but there's just the slightest rustling of something else starting to shiver inside her. It's not disappointment, it _can't be_ that, cause let's face it, even for Amy, that would just make _no sense_.

She said 'no', after all. Why would she be disappointed?

(Why, indeed?) (But that's a question - and an _answer_ \- for another time.)

(Like a few years later, right on this spot.) (But we're getting ahead of ourselves and we wouldn't want that.)

So, it's not a ring, though, really, could anyone blame Amy for thinking it was? A tiny velvet box, held out to her by the love of her life (something she has _never_ doubted) and there was such anticipation and hope dancing in said love of her life's eyes - and oh, how long has it been since Amy's seeing either of those in Reagan's eyes - and it's all happening in a spot so definitively and uniquely _theirs_.

Come on, that's like something out of Proposals 101. How could Amy think it was _anything_ else?

Well, for starters, she could have remembered this was _Reagan_ and Reagan doesn't do _anything_ 101.

Or, you know, she could have just _opened the box_.

And found the key.

"A key?"

Never let it be said that Amy doesn't, at least, have a firm grasp of the obvious.

"I don't understand."

Oh for fuck's sake… here we go _again_.

"I mean, I _understand_ ," she corrects (and she sorta does) (kinda) (maybe) (not really at fucking all). "I know what a key does and what it's for, but… I already _have_ a key to your place."

Penny in the air.

"Yeah, I know that," Reagan says, remembering quite clearly the moment she gave Amy _that_ key. (It was a Tuesday and you know what _that_ means.) (That it was a Tuesday.) (Not every day is a special food day, you know.) "I'm going to need that one back," she adds, gently nudging Amy's hand - and the box still in it - a little bit closer, urging her on, leading the horse to water, trying to teach the man to fish…

Oh, fuck the metaphors. She wants Amy to look at the tag - the tiny tag tied to the end of the key with tiny pink string that Karma gave her - like she _desperately_ , achingly wants her to look at the tag and put two and two together and come up with four. Math even Amy can do.

"Back?"

There's a ripple of pain trembling in Amy's voice that Reagan didn't expect, which isn't much of a surprise. Truth be told, she didn't expect any of this. It never once crossed her mind - or Karma's or Lauren's - that Amy might see the box and think ring and then make the jump from ring to proposal and even if she (or _they_ ) had?

Not a one of them would have thought 'no' would be the answer.

So, yeah, this is going about as bass-ackwards as it could possibly go and see? _This_ is what you get when you listen to an Ashcroft.

"You want your key back?" Amy asks, again and oh, shit, she's going to cry, Reagan knows the signs and, even if she didn't, the tears already leaking are a pretty good tip off. "But, I mean… why… "

The trail off. Fuck all, it's the _trail off_.

Amy blinks her eyes, flushing the tears and - Reagan knows - trying to gather her strength, fixing on her 'I'm not hurting and it's all good, no worries' face. Which looks oddly like her 'I want a doughnut' face, but then most of Amy's faces do.

"I mean, it's fine, I've got it right here," she says, shuffling the box into her other hand and reaching for her pocket. The key's there, right where it _always_ is. Amy's lost the key to her house three times, the key to her car four times, and the key to Lauren's journal (don't ask, just _don't_ ) once, but she has _never_ not known where _that_ key is.

She loves that key. It's her… thing. She finds it. When she's stressed or terrified or worried about Jack or the future or pissed (at Jack or the future) or just missing Reagan because she's working her fourth straight late night catering shift. Amy finds it and she holds it and she runs her fingers across the teeth of it, tracing the grooves, the jagged points of the metal soothing her until whatever it is? It passes.

Reagan's hand on her arm stills her movement, but that just sets those tears bubbling right back up. This is it, Amy thinks, this is that breakup that she wouldn't have been surprised by. A thousand thoughts wash through her mind, tidal waves crashing against the rocks, but one cries out louder than the rest.

_I can't_.

And she can't. She thought she _could_. She thought - on those dark nights when even the key didn't soothe - that if this is what Reagan was going to do, if this is what Reagan thought was _best_ , well…

Then _fuck her_.

"I had a speech," she mutters. "It was a good one. A tough one. All about how if you couldn't just be happy for me and if you were going to let miles…." Amy shakes her head. Words. It was all just words and she's _known_ that all along. She can't lose Reagan. Not like this. Not like _at all_. She twists her arm in Reagan's grasp, slipping their hands together, fingers lacing like they were made to do nothing else.

Fuck the speech.

"I won't," Amy says. "I won't go. I'll stay. I'll stay here and go to UTA and I'll live on campus, I'm sure I can find some nice girl to share a room with, one that's not Karma, one that would never look at either of us like _that_."

"Amy - "

She hears Reagan - sort of - but talks right over her. "They've got a… decent… film program and sure, Karma will be a little pissed, but we'll be fine. We've survived worse."

"Amy -"

"And it doesn't matter, anyway," Amy says, rolling right along. "College is just… college. A lot of very well off and quite happy people never went to college, you know." She squeezes Reagan's hand in hers. "You didn't go, and you're doing just fine."

"Amy -"

"No," Amy says, another shake of her head, standing up firm and tall. "I'm not giving you the key, Reagan. If I give you the key then that's it and that can't be… that _won't_ be it. I just won't let it."

She takes a step back, trying to tug her hand free to show her resolve and all, but Reagan won't let go. And if Amy had thought, even for a second, that there was any _real_ chance Reagan ever would?

Well, then she just didn't understand Reagan at all.

"Shrimps," Reagan says, finally getting her girlfriend to pause, to slow down, to put the resist at all costs train back into neutral. "The key," she says. " _That_ one," she adds, nodding towards the box. "Look at it, at the tag."

Amy glances that way, almost afraid to let Reagan out of her sight, as if she might vanish into the ether if she looks away. Reagan lets go of her hand and Amy reaches over, plucking the key from the box, reading the tiny lettering on the tiny tag.

_215 Treme Street. Unit 1C._

"Treme Street," she says softly, the pieces settling into place "That's like three blocks from…"

Her eyes light up and she looks from the key to Reagan and back to the key and back to Reagan.

And for once?

Amy understands.

"You're coming? You're coming to New Orleans with me?"

Reagan nods. "Yeah," she says. "Recently, someone… surprisingly wise… pointed out that maybe it was my turn."

The tears are back and it's all Amy can do not to throw herself into Reagan's arms right then and there. "Your turn for what?"

Reagan thinks about it for a moment, searching for the right way to put it. "My turn," she says, smiling, "to try orbiting _my_ world, for a change."

Amy shakes her head, the confusion back in her eyes, but that's… well… it's OK. Reagan understands enough for the both of them.

(Like she'd ever give Karma credit. Out loud.)

She catches Amy's hand and pulls her close, slipping her arms around the blonde's waist as she sinks back onto the swing. "Did you really think I'd break up with you?"

Amy shrugs and then nods and then, finally, slowly shakes her head. "Maybe for a second or two," she says. "But I knew better."

Reagan breathes - for what feels like the first time in forever - as Amy leans into her, her girlfriend's lips brushing lightly across her own. "You knew, huh?" she asks and Amy nods.

"Yeah," she says, turning and settling lightly on Reagan's lap. "I _know_ ," she says. "I know that wherever I am?" Amy clutches the key - her _new_ key - in her hand, fingers already memorizing the grooves and edges. "You're never far."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'm going to finish this. Eventually.


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done here. Last few chapters will be a lot like this one (not as long, I don't think) giving glimpses into the past, present, and future (there were some spoilers in this). Each one wrapping the storyline for a character or two. Next up, I think, is Lauren. Let me know what you think. Or if you want to punch me :)

_**A/N: This might be a bit long...** _

_**Ten Years Ago** _

The first time Amy says those three little words, Reagan's right there with her.

"I hate you."

She isn't actually next to Amy, at the time, or even _near_ her, really. She's in the back, by the pots of coffee - regular and decaf and something called half-caf that she's not really sure she understands or _wants_ to as, really, she prefers her coffee like her women: strong and rich and able to rev her engine with a single taste - but, for once, she doesn't mind a little distance from Amy. She doesn't even mind (much) that it's _Karma_ next to Amy or even that it's Karma who's _holding Amy's hand_.

(OK, maybe that part bugs.) (A little.) (If, by 'a little', you mean a lot.) (Like _all_.)

But still, it's… OK. (And yes, OK is _absolutely_ as far as she's gonna go.) This is what Amy needs right now. _Karma_ is what Amy needs right now and yes, Reagan's sure that 'right now' really means 'in this one very specific time and place' and is not code for 'has secretly always wanted all along and will dump you and go running back to Karma as soon as she makes a pit stop at her house and pulls out the I Heart Karmy tee shirt she's got hidden way in the back, under her suitcase.'

At least she _thinks_ she's sure and, really, she knows that means she's not sure, like _at all_ , but Amy _told her_ and if there's anyone's word Reagan would take on how Amy feels?

It's _not_ Amy.

But Lolo said it too, and she's standing right there with her (her being Reagan) and _that_ is good enough, or at least close enough to good enough - like good enough adjacent - to get the job done.

And, as she keeps reminding herself - and may soon resort to having Lolo remind her too - this whole mess was a mess long before her and long before Lolo and long before any thought of liking girls (or _anyone_ , really) had even started to cross Amy's mind. This is a mess, a _fight_ , with history.

History, when it comes to Amy, equals Karma. At least, Reagan keeps reminding herself, _for now_.

So there she stands, in the back (said that), by the coffee (said that _too_ ), close by Lauren, which means close by Theo (which Reagan doesn't really mind) and close by Shane (all good there) and _that_ means close by Liam.

Wait. What now?

Yes, Liam. As in Booker. As in Asshat A#1, Duke of the Dicks, Sultan of Shit, King of the Fuckboys.

(She couldn't come up with an insult that started with 'K', though she _tried_ , but that took more than like thirty seconds and _that_ was _far_ more time than Reagan was willing to give… _him_.)

She wasn't sure why Liam was there, except that the new girl - the one she'd seen him and Karma with, right before Karma had gone all Mike Tyson on Jack's face - was there and, it seemed, wherever _she_ went, Liam was sure to follow. He was like a puppy.

It would've been cute if it had been, well… _anyone_ else.

And so, yes, new girl was there too and yes, she did seem sort of, kind of, in ways Reagan didn't really want to think about, less than _new_.

Reagan couldn't remember the new girl's name ( _liar_ ) even though she knew she'd heard it, once, from _Liam_ , and so, yeah, you might understand why she wouldn't _want_ to remember,

why she'd be willing to do damn near anything to _forget_ it, even though she knew she never _ever_ would. New girl was a permanent fixture in Reagan's brain already, she had herself a cute little cubbie, right in the center of brain town, just off to the left of the four story office building that was Amy and the slightly shorter tower that was Lauren, somewhere just behind the little collection of bungalows that were Shane and Theo and, God help her, Karma.

And if she was going to keep thinking in real estate metaphors, Reagan was going to need something a lot fucking stronger than _coffee._

It wasn't _just_ her name that Reagan remembered, even if she said she didn't. It was her _face_. Reagan knew, from like the _very first moment_ she saw her, she was never going to forget that face. How could she?

It was _just like_ Amy's.

Karma said once that the first time she saw new girl (oh, for fuck's sake, _Lucy_ ) that she looked sorta familiar. Reagan said once that Karma was in fucking _denial_ , cause saying Lucy looked familiar was like saying Lolo looked _kinda_ like the girl from _Bunheads_ and sure, she was probably like one of _six_ people who ever even watched that, but come on.

It's called Google. And IMDB. Look it up.

The point (she _did_ have one) was that Lucy looked _a lot_ like Amy. Like Amy, _if_ Amy had Karma's hair (the style, not the color, though Reagan had to admit, Lucy's strawberry blonde dye work was on fucking _point_.) Like Amy, _if_ Amy had a splash of Lauren's cheekbones and like even one one-hundredth of Lauren's skill with blush and shading. Like Amy, _if_ Amy had just a bit of that impish smirk of Shane's.

Assuming that imps were constantly looking at everyone they talked to like they were imagining them naked. And yes, she meant _everyone_.

It was all of that - the Karma hair and the Lauren cheeks and the Shane smirk - that unnerved the shit out of Reagan the moment she saw Lucy, all up close and personal and not just on a street corner. But she could get _past_ that, even if she couldn't _forget_ it. It was the _just like Amy_ part she was having some trouble with.

Lucy looked _just like_ Amy, or close enough. 'Just like' adjacent. (Hey, it was a good line the first time, right?) Maybe close enough that you could tell they were related, that maybe you might think, at first glance, that Lucy was a slightly younger (six months and three days), a bit less infatuated with doughnuts (she prefers crullers) (whatever the _fuck_ those are), and so much less weight of the world (read: weight of Karma) balancing on her shoulders _version_ of Amy. But _that_ was just it.

She was just a version. Amy was the original, the one and only, accept no substitutes.

Unless, of course, you were _Jack_. In which case, it would seem, you would just accept right the fuck away. Which was, _obviously_ , the entire reason for those three little words.

"I hate you."

(Remember those? We're getting there. Promise.)

But still, Reagan couldn't get past it. Her eyes kept drifting to Lucy. Not because she liked her or _wanted_ to like her or was even _thinking_ of liking her. No, it was because as _just like_ Amy as she was… it was the differences that were like a fucking tractor beam, pulling Reagan's eyes to her. Lucy seemed - right up until the moment Amy dropped those three little words - like she was happy. Relaxed. Easy going and carefree and untouched by anything. Except, you know, maybe, _Liam_.

Reagan refused to think about how _that_ might make her even more _just like_ Amy than she already seemed.

In general, she was trying - and mostly failing - to refuse to think about Lucy at all. She didn't want to think about Lucy, cause that would mean thinking about Lucy _and_ Jack and _that_ would mean thinking about years.

Nine of them to be precise.

Nine long years when Amy had been with Farrah and failed marriages numbers one through Bruce. Nine long years when the closest thing Amy had had to a father was Lucas Ashcroft and, no offense meant to Karma's dad but… well… he was _Karma's dad_.

Not to suggest that his daughter's shortcomings painted a failing picture of him as a dad but…

Where was she? Oh. Right. Nine years.

Nine years of Amy being alone in ways no one else could ever understand. Nine years of her trying to remember only the good times she and Jack and her mother had had - Farrah had assured Reagan that there actually _were_ some - but all of those memories being drowned out, shouted down, buried every single time by that _other_ memory.

_Because of you. I'm leaving because of you_.

The first time she met Jack, a week ago yesterday, Reagan punched him in the face. She spent the rest of that night wondering if maybe, just _maybe_ , she was getting a bit too used to resorting to violence to solve her problems. First Liam, now Jack. And then she remembered _that_ , she imagined a younger, weaker, more heartbroken and not tough enough to hide it version of Amy, sitting alone in her room, those words running over and over and over in her head.

And then, she thought, maybe she hadn't been quite violent enough.

That's the other reason, besides the whole history thing (and the fact that Karma nearly pushed her out of the way to be by Amy _and_ Amy didn't seem to be bothered by _that_ ) she's back here, by the coffee. She's afraid - like genuinely concerned - that she might punch the fucker again, the moment he opens his mouth.

Of course, had she realized what Amy was planning, Reagan might not have been so worried about _that_.

"I hate you," Amy says. (Told you we'd get back to it.) "I don't know why you're here and I don't really care, I don't _want_ to know." Reagan resists the urge to mutter a 'you go, girl' (it's not still 2003, after all) but she can see the Lauren's blonde mane bobbleheading up and down, silently cheering her sister (and fuck DNA and biology and blood, _she's_ Amy's sister) on. "Whatever it is that you think you came back here for? You can forget it. You can forget _me_." Amy turns to go, but pauses, and turns back. "You did that for nine years. I'm sure you can remember how."

Reagan's impressed and she doesn't impress easy and, yes, she knows _that's_ bullshit because when it comes to Amy she impresses oh so _very easy_ , but you get the point. It (her speech) was short and sweet and to the point and didn't give Jack any time or any chance to even say a single word -

Words he would, apparently, have to be saying through _another_ bloody lip cause Amy takes all of two steps before pausing - _again_ \- then turning and delivering a right hook to her father's face that makes even Reagan wince and, she's pretty sure, draws a very _not_ manly whimper of pain from Liam.

It's all she can do not to laugh.

And then they're off. Amy and Karma and Lauren and Theo and Shane, across the shop and out the door, the other customers parting like the sea. Lucy's already by her father's side and Liam… well… he's just… _there_. He looks to the door like he wants to follow the others, but he knows he really _can't_ , and he looks to Lucy and Jack like he'll stay there but there's already a wall of sorts up around them, a circling of the Raudenfeld Lee wagons and he's on the wrong side of that _too_. He's stuck there, for a moment, lost and confused, until he finally just shakes his head and drifts off, seemingly headed to parts unknown and Reagan can only hope maybe he'll stay there.

She almost feels sorry for him. Almost. After all, she's still there too. She didn't follow the train out of the station with all her friends. (And, you know, _Karma_.) But unlike Liam, that's got next to nothing to do with her not knowing where she belongs. Quite the contrary, really.

She knows this is exactly where she needs to be.

Lucy glances back over her shoulder at her as Reagan slips down into the booth across from Jack, but Reagan pays her no mind. She's not about to let herself get distracted by little Miss Almost-Amy, not right now. There's a napkin and some silverware on the table and she - very nonchalantly - twirls the knife on the tabletop, spinning it with a finger.

"Round and round it goes," she mutters, barely holding back a smirk at the way Jack flinches at the sight of the spinning metal, or at the way Lucy suddenly reaches out - far quicker than Amy ever could - and snatches the knife from the wood. Reagan looks up, locking eyes with Jack before she speaks again. "She doesn't mean it, you know."

"What?" It's Lucy who asks and it's Lucy who Reagan ignores, _again_.

Reagan repeats the knife act with a spoon, but that doesn't elicit quite the same reaction as the knife. "You probably don't know this since, you know, you don't really know _her_ , but Amy didn't mean that. Any of it."

"It sure looked like she meant it." Lucy _again_. Reagan's tempted to tell her to go chase after Booker and let the grown ups talk, but Jack beats her to it, resting one hand on Lucy's, a silent father to daughter moment.

Nine years. They've had nine years to learn that. Nine years they stole from Amy.

Reagan sort of wishes she had the knife back.

"She _wants_ to," Reagan says. "She wants to hate you. Actually, she really wants to not give a fuck about you one way or the other. She wants your presence or, more likely, your absence, to not mean a thing to her."

The 'but it does', she leaves unsaid. Jack gets it, she knows that. But him, actually hearing the words… well, that might be just a bridge too far for Reagan right about now.

"But see, that's the thing about Amy," she says and even Jack, who doesn't know Reagan from fucking Adam, can see the look in her eyes, can tell how much this 'thing' makes her love _and_ hate her girlfriend all at once. "She forgives. Always. Eventually."

There's a moment when Jack's tempted to ask if this is about _him_ or about that girl, the one he remembers all too well, the one that was holding his daughter's hand. But he doesn't ask cause he already knows.

_And_ he's not stupid.

Reagan drops a hand down on the spoon, stilling it in mid-spin. "She _wants_ to forgive," she says. "She _needs_ to. It's in her nature. Maybe not her DNA, but in _her_."

Forgiveness _is_ Amy. Even Farrah knew that.

_Someday, Karma Ashcroft is going to come walking up to my front door…_

It isn't that Reagan doesn't understand, cause she does. She gets it all too well. Amy's spent years hating - or trying to hate - Jack. Hate him for what he did _before_ he left and _the way_ he left and for staying gone for all this time. She's spent so very long trying to hate him for all of that and yeah, Reagan gets that, she knows a thing or two about how _that_ feels.

"It feels exhausting," she says, not realizing or caring how out of nowhere that might sound. "It wears you down, carrying that with you. That's why people always say that forgiveness is really for you, not for those you forgive."

Jack nods and Reagan wonders if there's a step for that, if one of the twelve he's supposedly on speaks about forgiveness.

Even for those who don't deserve a lick of it.

"She wants to hate you," Reagan repeats, you know, for emphasis. "And I _do_. And _that_ is never going to change. There is nothing you can ever do that will make me…" she slowly shakes her head and pushes herself out of the booth. "Way I see it, Jack, you've got two choices. You can do what you do best, what you taught _her_ to do. You can run. You can pack up you and your… Lucy… and leave the same way you came in, slipping out in the dark where no one can see."

Jack nods again, finally speaking, his tongue slipping out between words to swipe at the blood pooling on his lip. "And my other choice?"

Reagan shrugs. "You can start giving her reasons to do what she already _wants_ to do," she says. "And maybe, one day, like ten years from now, you'll wake up one morning to discover you've got an actual relationship with your daughter."

The 'but I'll be there, _right there_ , watching every move and waiting, just _waiting_ , for the inevitable slip' she leaves unsaid too.

They both already know that.

"Amy came here today because she thinks, somehow, that you're still worth a chance," Reagan says, leaning against the edge of the booth and hating every word of it, even though she knows it's all true. "If she didn't, she would have just ignored you, kept right on pretending that you just don't exist. She's pretty good at that, you know. Must be in the genes."

Jack doesn't reply cause, really, what could he say?

Reagan runs a hand through her hair and she wonders, not for the first time, what might have happened if she'd just listened to the fucking GPS. "Amy thinks you're going to stay," she says, and a deaf man could hear the doubt ringing in her voice. "She'd never say it out loud, but she's got just enough Karma in her that somewhere, _way_ deep down, Amy honestly still truly believes in happy endings and that the good guys always win and that people… _all_ people… they're just inherently good."

It is, in fact, one of the things Reagan secretly loves so very much about Amy. One day, like ten years from now or so, she might even tell her that.

It is, though, one of the things she and Amy _don't_ have in common and Jack has already picked up on _that_. "And what about you, Reagan?" he asks. "What do _you_ think?"

It's a loaded question and _he_ knows it and _she_ knows it and _Lucy_ knows it, even if that's just about the _only_ thing she knows about any of this. Reagan sort of envies her for that. "I think that you and I both know better," she says. "People aren't inherently good or bad. They're just people. And people do good things and people do bad things. And some people you can count on and others…"

She shrugs. Others, it says ( _screams_ ) you can count on too. To let you down. Every. Fucking. Time.

"You don't think Amy can count on me?" Jack asks her.

Reagan laughs. Like a _legit_ laugh. "She counted on you to stay gone and you couldn't even manage _that_ ," she says. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she doesn't have to check to know it's Amy or Lolo (she'd prefer the former but figures it's more likely the latter) wondering where the fuck she went. "In the end, Jack, I _think_ you're just sober enough, just guilt ridden enough that you'll try. You'll do everything you can to make yourself believe that she's actually right about you." She leans down, pressing her palms flat against the table, so she can look him in the eye. "But in the end, I _know_ she's not." She laughs again, before straightening back up to walk away. "Ten bucks says you don't even make it to graduation."

It's not Jack, but Lucy who calls after her as she crosses the shop. "Ten bucks? That's it? Not so sure of yourself after all, are you?"

Reagan pauses by the door. There's a witty comeback, a razor-sharp line already poised and set, ready for her to let it fly. But that would keep her there, that would make her linger. Another second to turn, another three or four to say the words, another five or six to watch them land, to see if, maybe, Jack's ego is as fragile as his face.

But see, her phone? It's buzzing again. And this time, she does check, slipping it from her pocket even as she walks.

_Shrimps: Where are you? I sent Karma and everyone else home. I need you._

And when Amy calls? When Amy needs her? Well, that math is the simplest there is. See, that ten bucks? It's just like that one or two or six more seconds here instead of with _her_.

It's all more than Jack's worth.

* * *

_Eight days after the fire_

She's drunk.

He doesn't _need_ to be an expert on the subject to be able to tell that - not so long as he can see the way she's staggering around and slurring her words, or the sounds he _thinks_ are _trying_ to be her words - but, it just so happens that, when it comes to being full on, sloppy as all fuck, you'd best be praying to whatever God you believe in that you _don't_ remember this tomorrow morning drunk?

Jack's got a fucking Ph.D.

He supposes that's why Amy called him. Or, rather, why she _settled_ for him, why she realized maybe - for like the first time _ever_ \- he was her best choice. _That_ , he knows, was just plain old dumb luck. Amy had called Lucy trying to find Karma and she _did_ find Karma, she found the both of them, _together_ \- though Jack is _pretty sure_ they aren't _really_ together _,_ not like _that_ \- with him, in _his_ living room in _his_ house, even if he was almost never there anymore and _especially_ even if Karma had sworn never to take even one step over the threshold.

"I've spent enough time in _your_ house over the years," she said. "More than _you_ have so, I'll just stay on this side of your _new_ door, thank you very much."

Jack could be forgiven if he _heard_ that as ' _fuck_ you very much'. It was, after all, what she'd _meant_.

She'd stuck to it, even then, showing a bit of that famous Ashcroft stubborn streak, refusing at first to come inside. But after the fire and after the doctors finally let Lucy come home from the hospital, _Jack_ refused to let Lucy out of his sight and, apparently, Karma did as well and, when neither one of them seemed inclined to back down in the _slightest_ , Lucy sighed, walked over, and took Karma's hand and led her inside and that was just the end of that.

And _that_ was yesterday.

Still, twenty-four hours of house guests, is just that. Twenty-four _hours_ and maybe he's lost a few (or more than a few) brain cells along the way, but Jack's not so stupid that he's letting any of this make him think anything has _really_ changed. Karma's at his house and Amy's asked him for a favor (and it was actually an ' _ask_ ' and not a ' _tell_ ' and yes, that was _different_ ) and that's all well and good and progress and he knows the mantra: one step at a time.

But his _next_ step? Yeah, that's the tricky one. The one he's stumbled on pretty much every day for the last seven years, the one that's always there to remind him that progress or no progress he's still _him_.

That next step is Reagan.

Once she, you know, notices him standing there and all. She's still a bit too stagger-y and yell-y and clutching that bottle in her hand like it's her life-y to have spotted him.

So, no, Jack's got no illusions about anything. He knows this isn't a total sea change, it's not some seismic shift in his life, a massive one-stop-shop fix for his relationships with just about everyone (read: everyone who isn't his daughter) (the daughter he _came with_ , not the one he _left_ ) and he knows that none of this is about him or about him and Amy or about putting a few more planks into the bridge over the chasm between them (the one he _made_ , the one nine years pretty much _dynamited_ into permanence.)

Hell, this isn't even about Reagan, not really. It's not about who she is or what she's doing or what she's lost, even if all that _is_ what got Amy on the phone and why she sucked up her pride and tucked away her resentment and anger and sadness and anger and frustration - and did he mention _anger_ \- and actually asked _him_ for help.

"She hasn't even cried," Amy said. "Not since the funeral and I think she cried more at Liam's than at…" Jack could hear it over the line, the ache and the empty and the powerlessness, the total inability to help the one you love.

He'd hoped to never hear that again. Not from her, not from _Amy._

Hearing it from her mother - about _him_ \- had been enough of that for one lifetime.

Jack spares a moment to look away from Reagan - she's less staggering and more leaning now, on a tree that _doesn't_ seem likely to let her fall any time soon - and glance up at what used to be his daughter's home away from home, at least in the physical sense. He understands, so much more than anyone gives him credit for, that Amy's real home stopped being a _place_ a long damn time ago. It turned from a _where_ to a _who_ (Karma, at least at first) right about the time her other home - the _real_ one every kid is supposed to have - disappeared into the Austin night, never to be heard from again.

Except here he is - that disappearing home - and never, apparently, is a fuckload shorter than the word suggests.

But now, that home - _Amy's_ home - _isn't_ the girl sitting who spent all those years in the house Jack built and abandoned. It's not the _woman she's_ become either, the one silently watching over Amy's _sister_ , much the way she _used_ to watch over _Amy_ , standing guard as Lucy sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning and crying out in fear as nightmares of flame and smoke and Liam's ash and soot covered face dance inside her mind.

Amy loves Karma and everyone knows that and everyone knows she always will. But Amy's _home_ is five feet in front of him, leaning against a tree, muttering under her breath, clutching to a bottle in way Jack finds both terrifying and oddly familiar - and yes, he'll grasp at _any_ straw of similarity when it comes to him and Reagan - and he knows he can't ever undo the last sixteen years and, if the fire has taught them all anything, there's not a single shred of a guarantee that there will be sixteen _more_.

But the _here_ and the _now_? Maybe he can do something about _that_.

Besides, you know, fucking it up.

The building, such as it is, well… it's not really a building anymore. There's walls still standing, sure, and some of the roof and the insurance guy, the one Amy dealt with while Reagan lurked in the background, giving him a glare Jack had once thought was reserved for him, _did_ say that it wasn't a _total_ loss.

Insurance guys, Jack thought (then and now) probably out to sit down and redefine 'total', cause he was pretty sure no one he knew agreed with Mr. Insurance's assessment in the slightest.

There was a booth left. One, from the back, as far removed from ground fucking zero as it could have been and still been in the building. It was… salvageable. A couple of semi-standing chairs, a light fixture or two. A stance of menus that had somehow been protected beneath the melted glass of the front display case.

"If you're going to rebuild," insurance guy had said, "it's not much, but it's a start."

It had been all Amy could do to keep Reagan from punching him, a habit Jack had thought she'd finally outgrown. But tragedy, he knew, could make anyone backslide.

Anyone.

He thought about it now, about that word. Start. A start from an end. _Two_ of them, really, and it was almost four. Jack doesn't like to think about it, he's spent almost every single minute of the last eight days actively trying to think about _anything_ else. Trying not to think how close Jana came to not making it - it'll be another week, _minimum_ , before they send _her_ home - and trying even harder not to think…

He'd almost lost her.

Sometimes, Jack knows, he focuses so much on Amy, on fixing or at least not worsening, things between _them_ that he almost forgets Lucy. She says that she doesn't mind, she says that she understands and she and Jack both _let_ that be true.

He has a feeling that might not hold up anymore.

She almost died. Another minute, another two, maybe three, another two or three or four more breaths and she wouldn't have taken any more. A little more smoke, a little more flame and _those_ thoughts make Jack shut his eyes and try not to think about it and yeah, if that actually ever works, he'll be sure to let you know.

In the end, Lucy escaped. And no, that's not _quite_ right. She didn't _escape_ , she was _saved_ , she was pulled, dragged, somehow carried to safety by a young man Jack had sort of come to think of as a son. And _that_ , he knew was just more of his usual bullshit. It wasn't 'sort of' or 'kind of' or a 'little bit'. Liam had been the first real friend Jack had made in years and yes, thinking of it, of _him,_ in sort of's and kinda's and the like, it does help to stave off the grief and the guilt, at least for a moment or two.

And then it all comes roaring back and Jack remembers that _he's_ not _supposed_ to be free of the grief or the guilt ( _especially_ not _that_ ) but just because _he_ has to live with it… well…

That doesn't mean _she_ does.

He takes one step closer and thinks - remembering how Reagan _hasn't_ outgrown punching after all - that maybe that's close enough. He stuffs both his hands in the pockets of his jacket, it's unseasonably cool for a Texas night, and stares up at the not-a-building anymore.

"Karma's acting like it's all… I don't know," he says and yes, he knows how _stupid_ it is to begin any conversation with Reagan by making it about _Karma_. But he's much like his daughter, not in an obsessed with Karma way. He's just a bit of a… round the way kinda talker. He'll get there, he'll settle on the point, eventually. You just gotta hang on for the ride.

"I'd forgotten how 'glass half full' she could be," he says. "She's acting like it's all going to be just fine, like Liam's just popped on down to the corner store and he's gonna be back any minute now."

Karma _and_ Liam. If he's _looking_ to get punched, he's on the right track.

Reagan doesn't turn or look or otherwise acknowledge that she even hears him, if she's at all surprised that _he's_ there. If she's shocked that it's him or that he's talking about Karma and Liam instead of her father or the bottle in her hand, Jack can't tell.

Spoiler Alert: she's _not_. Reagan knew someone would come and she knew it wouldn't be Amy and - honestly - that it _shouldn't_ be. Not yet. And as for Jack talking about anything other than the giant fucking elephant in the room..

She's been with Amy for seven years. She knows the drill.

"In some ways, Karma's really grown up," Jack says and he's right, too, even if Reagan might not be at a point to admit _that_ just yet. Karma _has_ grown. She's less all about her and more about others, less flighty, less prone to insane plans (future Harcroft spawn notwithstanding) and, in most ways, she's got both feet planted firmly in the real world.

In _most_ ways.

"Sometimes though," he says, with a slow shake of his head. "She still slips back, you know? Back to her little house on the corner of Denial Ave and Fantasy Lane." He leans up against a tree and turns, looking at her for the first time since he got there. "Must be nice," he says, "but it doesn't work for everyone, does it?"

" _Fuck!"_

It's more of a scream than a yell, something guttural, something _past_ pain, more bordering on desperation and it breaks Jack's heart. Despite what Reagan thinks, he _has_ come to love her and even if he didn't… no one would wish that kind of agony on anyone.

She hurls the bottle ( _a_ bottle) (she's got another one in her hands already and he's got no idea where the hell she had _that_ hidden) across the caution tape border surrounding what's left of what used to be her place, listening with something akin to satisfaction - or whatever's close enough to that that could actually break through - as it shatters on the remnants of the front steps.

No. Denial doesn't work for everyone.

She staggers a couple steps back and leans against another tree. It's the first of the ones that _aren't_ scorched or burnt or still covered in a layer of soot and smoke. It hasn't rained since the fire - the forecast calls for thunderstorms over the weekend, but Jack isn't naive enough to think anything short of another Noah is gonna wash any of _this_ away - and this is as close as she can get without getting into ash and soot and tangled in that tape and, he thinks, it's funny the things you never realize about fire.

The distance, for one. The way it reaches out, its flickering fingers of flame touching _everything_ , scratching and clawing and digging in, desperate for purchase, fighting to stay alive till their very last breath. Jack's eyes wander over the wreckage and _that's_ another one: the remnants. You always think of the damage it does, of the things it burns and melts and destroys.

You don't often think of what it leaves behind.

Jack's surprised at _that_. He'd have thought himself an expert on things left behind.

Fire _is_ those burned out husks, the buildings gutted, the belongings - the _possessions_ \- charred to ash. But it's so much _more_. It's the trees gone black, likely to be removed, _maybe_ replaced and they're not the only thing, but they're the _easiest_ , the least painful, one tree is the same as the next and oh, if that were only true for _everything_. And it's the grass - right down to the tips of each blade - burnt like marshmallows sizzling at the end of a stick. It's the coughs that linger for days, the dark grime under your nails that you can't get out. The way your breaths catch in your throat and you're not sure another one is ever going to come.

It's the eyes of a woman who looks, for all the world, like she's not sure she _wants_ it to.

Not that he'd say it to Amy, but Jack would be more surprised if Reagan _wasn't_ drinking. She lost so much. A father. A friend - and Liam was _that_ , in the end, Jack's sure - and a building, a business, a _home_. Even if that had been _all_ of it, the sum total of everything Reagan lost that night, it would still be enough to drive almost anyone into a bottle.

She still hasn't acknowledged him, which is good, in a way. After all, that means the bottle is still in her hand and not yet flying by his head. It's dark, too dark for him to see the label, to recognize her choice in poison, but, he supposes, _what_ it is is considerably less important than _that it is_. It is what it is, Lucy would say. And what it is, right now, no matter the vintage or the malt or the label, is an escape. Trouble is, Jack knows all too well how easily, how quickly, how without warning, that escape _from_ something can turn into a far more permanent trap. Not that he, or anyone else, thinks Reagan's going to follow down his path. No, for him, that bottle was a _life_.

For her, it's an _excuse_. A high proof, finely aged, burn the inside of your throat until it matches the scorched outside of your world, reason why she _isn't_ picking herself up off the mat, why she hasn't even started to get on with the getting on. But it's only been _eight days_ and she doesn't _need_ an excuse. No one - least of all the woman she loves - expects her to be the old Reagan just yet, not now, maybe not ever. But Jack knows _better_. The excuse isn't for all of them.

It's for her.

"She send you?"

That Reagan gets the words out clearly and smoothly and _correctly_ tells Jack that she's either not drunk enough, or that she passed 'enough' an hour or so ago and now she's fully on the downward slope to a sober that will end up tipping that new bottle right down her throat, in a desperate attempt to stave reality off, even if just for five more minutes. Trouble is, that five is never enough. There's always another five, another ten, another hour, another day.

Another nine years. Give or take.

"She sent you, didn't she?" Reagan asks again, this time glancing at him over her shoulder, as she points and jabs at the air with one finger from the hand still death-gripping that bottle.

It's Jack. The bottle.

The irony is strong with this one.

"Well, you can just go right back to her and tell her that I am just A-O-fucking-K," Reagan says, turning her back to him and staring off into the dark. It's a moonless night and Jack knows she can't actually _see_ the details, just the outlines, the shape of things. He also knows that matters very little, as in not _at all_. "I don't need her sending babysitters after me. And, you know what? You tell her I'm a little hurt. I didn't even rate Lolo? I had to get _you_?"

He could remind her that Lauren is still out of town, that she has been since the night _before_ the fire, that _she_ was the one who talked to her on the phone and told her it was 'fine' and there was nothing 'she could do' and she should finish up with everything with Theo's sister's wedding and then come home and that would be just 'soon enough'.

He could. But he'd prefer to not get bottle bombed just yet.

"She think you're gonna scare me straight?" she asks. "That it? You hear to remind me of the dangers of alcohol? Show me what I might become?"

Jack shakes his head, not that she's looking. "You won't become me," he says, silently leaving off the 'you're far too strong for _that_ '. "I think Amy just… she thinks maybe there's something I can do for you that she can't."

Reagan wheels on him - as best she can - and Jack braces for impact but it doesn't come, at least not _physically_.

"In the history of the world," she says, "there is nothing… _nothing_ … that _you_ could ever do for _me_."

She slumps back against the tree and, if he could see that well in the dark, Jack would know her knuckles have gone white around the bottle neck. Her legs give out beneath her and Reagan slides down the trunk till she's on the ground, her head tipped back against the tree, her eyes squeezed shut against the dark.

"OK," she mutters. "Maybe there is _one_ thing." She fumbles in her pocket, dragging her keys out and flinging them in Jack's general direction. "I don't want to be here anymore," she says and yeah, Jack's going to just go right ahead and assume she just means _here_ , like the literal place and not the more… _global_ here.

Reagan doesn't strike him as the suicide type. No matter the hell she's living in.

"I hate you, you know," she says and yeah, he knows. But he still scoops her keys up off the ground, wondering which will piss her off more. Him driving her truck or her riding in his car. In the end, it's six of one and a half dozen of the other and, he knows, by the time he's done, she's gonna hate him _more_ anyway.

So they'll take the truck. At least the windows all work.

* * *

They don't go home.

"This isn't home," Reagan says and, clearly, being three sheets to the wind - though Jack suspects the cool night breeze and the lack of any further imbibing has made it a little closer to one and a half sheets by now - hasn't impacted her firm grasp of the obvious. "This," she says, staring out the open window, "is _so_ not home."

Jack slips the truck into park and stares at the wheel, collecting himself. This was _his_ idea, and he still thinks it's the right one - even if it maybe isn't all that _good_ a one - but that was, you know, _before_.

Before they got here and before he remembered and, in this case, remembering isn't just a river in Egypt or a vague sense of recollection tickling at the back of his brain. It's more like an ice cold hand, reaching up and squeezing his heart, slowly wringing the life out of it like water out of a sponge and he wonders, just for a second, if Reagan would give him that bottle if he asked.

It's only a moment, but it feels like… well… it _doesn't_ feel like _forever_.

It feels a lot - like _exactly_ \- like a thousand and one moments he had over a thousand and one nights and Jack cringes, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a long deep breath, at the thought of how many of those nights ended here, instead of at home. How many of them ended with him on the ground - his own _holy_ ground, but still the fucking _dirt_ \- instead of safely tucked away in his bed, in the loving embrace of his wife.

"Do you know how many nights Amy's crawled into bed with me?" Farrah asked him once, after he'd been gone for two full days. "How many nights _she's_ taken _your_ place because she heard me crying and wanted to make it better?"

Jack didn't know _then_ and he still doesn't know _now_ , but he's got the feeling she wouldn't have asked if it had just been _once_ , even if once was already _more_ than too many.

He pulls his phone out and taps away as he kills the engine and yes, _kills_ is probably a poor choice of words, all things considered, but if he's lucky, nothing else will die tonight. Not him. Not his relationship with Amy, the one dancing on the thinnest of ices.

That's the hope, but then hope doesn't just spring eternal for people who make good choices and do the right thing.

It's there for fuckups like him too.

"Why are we here?" Reagan asks and yeah, that _is_ the million dollar question, but Jack's got no good answer, at least not a good one he can _say_.

This, he knows, is more of a show than a tell kinda situation, so he says nothing as he taps out the last letter of his text message - like he'd have ever guessed that learning to do that would actually come in handy - and presses send before tucking Reagan's keys into his pocket, a move she doesn't miss.

"Making sure I can't run?" she asks and Jack thinks - for like a hot minute - of pointing out that even only one and a half sheets pretty much _guarantees_ she can't actually _run_ , but _he's_ not drunk (or stupid), so he just slips out from behind the wheel without saying anything, making his way around to the passenger side of the truck, tugging Reagan's door open.

It sticks a little. Still.

Jack gets it on the second pull and Reagan's still too confused - and she's hurtling right past confused and straight on to _pissed_ as fast as her soused brain can get her there - to actually notice, so at least he's spared a bit of mockery.

"Come on," he says, offering her a hand out (that he knows she'll refuse.) "I want to show you something."

She does refuse his hand - like _that's_ a shock - but she eyes it for a moment, in that way most people might eye a hissing cobra, her eyes tracking it's every move (Jack's holding perfectly still but Reagan's a bit of a weeble at the moment), mesmerized but wary, before she finally slides out of her seat, stumbling slightly when her feel hit the ground.

"Lead the way," she says, waving ahead of them and Jack knows full well she just doesn't want him to watch her weaving and wobbling as she walks and, having been on her end of that deal more than… well… _a lot_ … in his life, he politely nods and turns, walking ahead without waiting for her. She'll follow, he's sure enough of that.

He's still got her keys after all.

She's on his heels soon enough, as he crosses the small lot and through the old gate that creaks like bones as he pushes it open and _God_ , could this _get_ any more cliche?

Reagan pauses just on the other side of the gate, looking at the rusted plaque hanging to the left. "A cemetery," she says, her eyes darting from the plaque to Jack's back and then to the plaque again. "You brought me to a _cemetery_ ," she says. "And it isn't even the _right_ one."

Jack's phone shakes in his hand, but he doesn't look down, turning instead to face Reagan, still on the other side of the invisible line, the last barrier between the living and the dead, assuming you don't count six feet of earth and pine boxes of varying quality and age. He knows what she means, knows full well that the 'right one' - the one they buried her father in three days ago - is on the other side of town.

But it's not _her_ ghosts they're here for.

"It's just over there," he says, nodding toward the back corner of the small lot before turning and walking ahead again, not giving her a chance to argue with him. He takes the chance to sneak a peek at his phone, the three words blinking back up at him giving him a sense of relief that's wrapped up in an eggroll of dread.

_On my way_

Well, he's all in now.

Reagan doesn't move, not right away, but eventually the creepy of standing in a dark graveyard by herself outweighs (barely) the creepy of following Amy's father _through_ said dark graveyard and soon she's right behind him again, so close he could reach out and take her hand before she'd even be able to stop him.

But he doesn't. Jack's got no interest in getting buried alongside his memories here tonight.

He comes to a stop at the far end of the cemetery, the most sparsely… populated… area, only two or three headstones within reach, nothing there but a tree. And, really, calling it a 'tree' is sort of like calling him a 'drunk.'

The word's right, by definition, but it somehow misses the scope by like a country fucking mile, if a country mile was the distance between here and the molten core of the sun.

More or less.

It's huge and Jack swears it's grown, even if logically he knows that's not possible. It was old when he was last here - the day he left, the hour _after_ he told Amy it was because of her - and he's actually a bit amazed it's even still here.

But of course it is. Some things - some pains - will outlive us all.

"Who?" Reagan asks, stumbling to a stop beside him. "Who's buried here?"

Jack shakes his head slowly, not quite trusting his voice just yet.

"Come on, Jack," she says, the drunk edge to her words fading and the old bitter blade he's used to slicing through the air between them coming slowly back. "You brought me here for a reason, right? What is it? _Who_ is it? What'd you do? Drink and drive and kill someone?"

He lets out a shuddering breath and, for a moment, Reagan thinks that might actually be it and oh, that's… well…

Fuck.

"No one's buried here," he says, not even noticing as he takes a couple slow steps back and leans gently against one of the few gravestones. It could be seen as rude or disrespectful but Reagan's the only other _living_ one here and her opinion of him _can't_ get any _lower_. He nods at the tree. "There," he says, nodding again at a spot low on the trunk.

She looks between him and the tree for a second before, slowly, stepping closer, and kneeling next to it in the dark. She fumbles in her pocket for her cell phone, bringing the screen to life and shining the dim light on the trunk, the jaggedly carved letters highlighted in the faint glow.

_KJR_

Reagan looks back at Jack, the question written all over face, even as the light of her screen fades to black.

"Did Farrah ever tell you why I _started_ drinking?" he asks. Reagan shakes her head no. She and Amy's mother talked about him - more than she and Amy ever did - but that was the one subject she _doesn't_ remember them talking about. Like at all. "Didn't figure," Jack says, "not that it matters. The 'why' doesn't excuse the 'what' of it all. But…"

He runs a hand through his hair and then crosses his arms over his chest. For once, Reagan isn't pushing - she's not doing much of anything - and Jack's grateful. This is hard enough at his own pace.

"I was _always_ a bit of drinker," he says. "And maybe 'a bit' is underselling it, but it wasn't… _I_ wasn't a drunk, not at first, not in the beginning."

Everything's got a beginning, everything's got a trigger.

"When Amy was two, Farrah discovered…" he trails off and laughs, a harsh bark of a thing, ripping through the quiet of the dark night. "Discovered makes it sound like she found it while exploring new trade routes to India or some shit," he says. "When Amy was two, Farrah got pregnant. _We_ got pregnant."

Reagan's eyes flick back to the tree and she _wishes_ it was just the booze making her stomach roll.

"We never even told Amy," Jack says. "We wanted it to be a surprise. We were going to tell her at her birthday party. Like it… _she_ … was a present."

If Jack thought _that_ was going to slip past Reagan unnoticed… "She?" Reagan slumps back against the tree, her subconscious somehow, even drunk, making sure she doesn't cover the letters. "Another girl?"

Jack nods. "Katharine Josephina Raudenfeld. After Farrah's mother… Nana… and my gram."

KJR.

Reagan pulls her knees to her chest and drops her eyes to the ground. She can't - she _won't_ \- look at him right now.

Jack stands, pushing off the gravestone, but he doesn't otherwise move. "Farrah was three and a half months along when it happened," he says. "Doctor said it was just a freak thing, was just nature. We didn't do anything wrong, we didn't _make it happen,_ it just… did."

He takes a couple hesitant steps forward, kneeling near her and he wouldn't even have noticed if she pulled away, but Reagan doesn't move an inch. She watches his hand running along the trunk, so close but yet so far from those letters.

"There was nothing… we didn't have a body to bury," he says. "Couldn't have a funeral, I mean, who does that for someone who was never _really_ a someone, right?" His fingers shake as they drift ever closer. "She was never _Katharine_ , she was never really _real_." If he sounded any less like he believed _that_... "They say that you've lost the baby, but how do you lose something you never _had_ , that you never held or touched or…"

Jack presses his palm against the aged bark of the tree, feeling the cracked and worn wood digging into his skin.

He was going to say 'or loved'. That you never loved.

But that would have been one lie too many, even for a Raudenfeld.

"I'm not surprised Farrah never told you when I started drinking," he says and Reagan notices, not for the first time, the way her name sounds on his lips and it hits her then - and she doesn't know how she's missed it all these years - the simplest of truths about Farrah and Jack.

He left her. But _she_ never left _him_.

"I imagine," he says, "that thinking about _that_ … it probably hurts her more than anything. That one day, it cost her so much." She can't see him clearly in the dark, but Reagan can _feel_ his tears dripping down his cheek. "Fate took Katharine from her. And then _I_ took the rest."

Reagan hears the soft sounds of footsteps crossing the lot before he does, but she doesn't look, an odd sense of… duty?... to Jack - or maybe to Farrah or the baby she never knew - keeping her there, in that moment.

With him.

Just when she thought her life couldn't get any weirder.

"I'm not here to scare you straight," Jack says, his hand still pressed… no… still _clutching_ to the tree. "No one thinks you're going to be me, Reagan, no one's worried you'll fall into a bottle and never be able… never _want_ … to climb back out."

The steps grow still, just behind them and Jack's eyes flick that way in the dark. He can't see _her_ there, she's swallowed up by the night, but then again, he's never needed to _see_ her, now has he?

"Everyone's got it wrong, you know," he says to Reagan - and yes, to _her_ , too - slumping down, his head coming to rest against the rough bark of the trunk. "Everyone thinks my sin… that my addiction was the booze. That I got lost in the drink. And that's just not right."

Not entirely, at least.

He turns slightly, eyes seeking out Reagan's face in the shadows. "Do you know why Amy's not here?" he asks her, not surprised when the darkness shifts, swirling in space as she shakes her head. "It's because Amy _knows_ ," he says. "She knows my sin was never the drinking and _that's_ what scares her, Reagan. _That's_ how she thinks you just might be me, after all."

Jack tenses, stiffening even as the words tumble out of him. Comparing her to him, well, that's a much deserved one way ticket to punch town, but Reagan doesn't move and she doesn't say a word and maybe, he thinks, _that's_ why she'll _never_ be him.

"Amnesia," he says. It's almost a whisper, but it might well be the loudest thing he's ever said to anyone. "That was my sin, my addiction. Forgetting. Forgetting _her_ ," his hand slips down the trunk, tracing a slow path over the border of those letters he carved so many years ago. "Trying to, at least. But I never did. I never…"

Those steps again. Closer. But halting, holding their distance. But just barely.

Jack turns again, facing Reagan in the dark. "I never forgot _her_ ," he says, "it didn't matter how much liquor I tried to bury her under. And I know you'll never forget him either, your father." He reaches out, his hand finding hers and maybe it's just because she can't see it or maybe it's, oh, who knows _why_ , but she _lets_ him take it. "But I _did_ forget, Reagan. I forgot what… _who_ I had. I forgot I wasn't alone."

Those steps again, not stopping this time. And why would they… why would _she_? Jack called her here.

_Your daughter needs you. The one you chose. She's with me._

_With the one you lost._

"Amy's not here," Jack says, "because you _know_ you have her. You know she'll never go, that wherever you are, she's..." He trails off, he doesn't actually say it, but then he doesn't have to.

Reagan hears it anyway. She hears it every day.

Jack squeezes her hand and then, slowly, deliberately, he lets go. "Amy _needs_ for you to _remember_ ," he says. "That it's not _just_ her. You lost a father and that sucks beyond sucking and there's nothing that can ever bring him back. But you…"

"You still have a family."

Reagan turns to those words, spinning in the dark, those steps finally breaking through, and she doesn't need to _see_ to _know_ Farrah's there, right where she always is. Waiting for her to slip out of the dark, to find her way.

Her way home.

It's only three steps but it feels like three _million_ before Reagan's tipping and toppling into her arms… her _mother's_ arms… and maybe it's the feel of those arms around her or the way she instinctively just knows they'll never let her go, but whatever it is - and the _what_ doesn't really matter, not in the end - that's when the dam breaks, when the rush of everything she's tried to bury, just the way they buried _him_ , comes hurtling out of her in sobs and heaves and, for just those few minutes, Reagan's not sure it'll ever stop.

But she's sure - she _remembers_ \- that even if it doesn't?

Her family is never far.

* * *

_Three years from now_

The last time Reagan ever says those three little words, Amy's nowhere near.

It's still so weird to her, being _here_ \- Farrah's house - with _him_ , with _Jack_. It doesn't matter, not a whit, that Farrah is OK with it. And it somehow matters even _less_ that Bruce says he's just _fine_ with it.

Fine. Fuck _that_. Reagan may not have invented 'just fine', but she's Goddamned _perfected_ it and if you don't believe that, well, you can go right ahead and ask Amy.

But probably do it… later. Amy's time is something of a precious commodity just now.

"It feels like a betrayal," she says, leaning against the kitchen counter next to her father-in-law, well, _one_ of them, anyway. "Him being here. Him _staying_ here. I mean, yeah, I know this was his house _first_ -"

"And thanks for the reminder of _that_ ," Bruce mutters and for a moment Reagan thinks she's said the exact _wrong_ thing and oh, like that would be a _first_. But then Bruce gives her a grin, that old goofy 'I'ma fuckin' with you' good old boy grin of his - the one she's never quite squared with the man who spawned Lauren 'Satan's ninja' Cooper - and nudges her with his shoulder. "I get the sentiment, Rea," he says, "and I certainly appreciate it, but…"

He shrugs and that's only about the five _hundredth_ time someone has done _that_ in the last six weeks, it's happened so often it's become a part of their family's unspoken language and yes, it's nice that they have something like that - and that she gets to be a part _of_ , rather than apart _from_ it - but it still just pisses her off.

Like _that's_ a first, either.

"Believe me," Bruce says, "I know how you feel. I know Jack makes you uncomfortable and trust me, having my wife's first husband living here, it's not my idea of a good -"

She cuts him off. _Hard_. "It _was_ your idea," she says, turning against the counter, and scooting closer so she can whisper, lest Lucy or Karma or - worse - one of the kids hears her. Reagan's been down _that_ particular road with both her sister-in-law _and_ her bff-in-law, and she knows they absolutely _hate_ it when she speaks ill of Grampa Jack in front of the _children_. "You're the idiot who _suggested it_."

"Because I knew Farrah wanted it," Bruce replies, ignoring the 'idiot' part, and lowering his voice as well. He smiles politely at Emma as she snags an apple juice from the fridge and makes her way back out of the kitchen. "And I knew _Amy_ wanted it." He shrugs, _again_ and Reagan grips the counter to keep from smacking _something_. "And it's not like he's gonna be here that long."

He's right. He's so very very _very_ right. But all the rightness in the world, doesn't do a thing to keep them both from freezing in place at his words, their eyes doing a slow pan around the kitchen, out to the living room, just to make sure no one heard _that_.

It's horrible to speak ill of the dead. That's one lesson - maybe the _only_ one - Reagan got from her mother that actually stuck. And, she supposes, that probably should apply to the _nearly_ dead too.

Or, it _will_ , if either of the nearly dead's daughters (or Karma) or his granddaughter (or Emma) (or even Luke, even though _his_ father wasn't the nearly dead's kind of son, but both of them still call him Grampa Jack and no, that's not weird _at all_ and _God_ , sometimes Reagan thinks this family of hers needs a fucking flowchart) heard them.

Bruce nods, mostly for lack of anything better to do - and at least it's not another _shrug_ \- but when he leans back on the counter and waves to Farrah, out in the living room with her little Katie-did on her hip, the smile crossing his face doesn't match his words, not _at all_. "You don't like it and I don't like it and _Lord knows_ Lauren doesn't like it," he whispers softly, "but this? It isn't about _us_."

He pats Reagan lightly on the shoulder and heads out of the kitchen, ruffling Luke's hair on his way as - not for the first time - Reagan wonders why _he's_ not Papa Bruce or some such homey shit and yeah, she gets it, Karma and Shane are closer now to Jack than they are to Bruce and yes, she knows that's only _logical_ (he's Karma's family now, after all) but it still just… bugs.

Some things, she thinks, really _never_ change.

She sighs and fires off a glance down the hall, at the very closed door to the spare bedroom that Bruce and Farrah added on a few years back. It was meant, at the time, to be a room for Katie, a nursery of sorts, first, and eventually her own bedroom, so she wasn't just fitting into her mom or Aunt Lolo's old room. It was _meant_ that way and, Reagan supposes, it might someday still be that. Maybe.

Or maybe, when it's all said and done, they'll bulldoze the fucker to the ground and start all over.

The door's shut, like it almost always is. She wonders sometimes - _always_ silently to herself and never out loud, especially not to her wife - if keeping it shut is more for Jack's _privacy_ or their _benefit_. There's something to be said for out of sight, out of mind, even if she knows full fucking well that Jack hasn't been out of _anyone's_ mind in months.

Cancer has a way of doing that.

Death does too.

She doesn't need to do another scan of the room to know exactly who's MIA, who's behind that closed door. She'd watched as Amy headed off that way almost as soon as they got here, not before handing off Katie to her Nana (and yes, Reagan knows _that's_ a family tradition and that's who Farrah is now, and she's fine with it but, to her, there will always be only _one_ Nana) and she hasn't been seen since.

If she sticks with her usual pattern - and Mama Amy is nothing if not a creature of habit and routine now - Reagan _won't_ see her again, at least not for another hour and no, that doesn't _really_ bother her. It doesn't bother her so much that she only brought it up once, wondering if maybe Amy was spending a bit too much time with Jack.

"He doesn't have much time left, Rea," Amy said, in much the same soothing voice she used to try and get Katie to sleep at three in the morning, and yeah, that probably had something to do with both being somewhat lost causes. It was Amy's 'mama' voice and, if it wasn't such a sweet and oddly arousing thing, Reagan might have objected to being 'mothered'.

The fact that she was holding her daughter, who had _finally_ fallen asleep, in the rocking chair in the nursery - the chair Jack fucking _built_ \- and it was just about the most perfect moment she'd ever experienced had absolutely nothing (read: _everything_ ) to do with it.

"I just worry," she said softly, careful not to wake the sleeping beauty. "I don't want you see you get hurt."

Amy nodded and smiled and if it didn't quite reach her eyes… well… they _were_ talking about the death of her father. And _that_ , more than anything, was precisely why she so easily humored her wife about it all, why she didn't object or get offended any time Reagan brought it up. Younger Amy might have. Younger Amy would have probably _agreed_ but then argued just on principle.

(Read: for the make up sex.)

(Mostly.)

But Mama Amy _wasn't_ younger Amy and Mama Amy had spent the better part of thirteen years with every version of Reagan. She knew her wife inside and out and she knew that every time Reagan mentioned her spending a little _less_ time with Jack?

It was always about her wish to spend _more._ She knew that when they talked about it, like this, they weren't always - or even _mostly_ \- talking about the death of _Amy's_ father.

So, Amy did what Amy always did and kissed her wife softly and pressed an even softer kiss to the top of her daughter's head and gently reminded Reagan that she couldn't _get_ hurt, not by him, not anymore, and that now was _the_ time, the _only_ time, because time was one thing Jack just didn't have much of.

"You heard the doctors," she said.

Yeah. Reagan heard them. She heard their words - stage four, lungs, and _maybe_ six months (or weeks) (she heard _that_ too) - and she heard Jack joking about always thinking it would be his liver but he 'must have pickled that bad boy' just a little _too well_ (and she was the only one who laughed) and she gets it. She really does.

Getting doesn't equal liking.

And neither of those equals being comfortable - something she's never been and never will be when it comes to Jack and his place in their family - and yes, Reagan's _also_ heard every one of the lectures (from Karma) (no one else would _dare)_ about how holding a grudge, especially one against someone who never, you know, hurt _you_ , is _probably_ a bad idea and _definitely_ not what a mature woman trying to be a role model for her little girl would do.

"Katie's _three months_ , Karma," Reagan said (said, not _snapped_ , and see? She's _matured_.) "By the time she's old enough to know what a grudge even is, I'll be over it."

She left off the 'cause he'll be dead and all' and see ( _again_ )? So. Fucking. Mature.

But Reagan's heard it all and she's _tried_ , really she has. She keeps her comments to herself, mostly, or to Bruce. Sometimes Lauren. Occasionally Katie, but only during middle of the night feedings and _never_ in front of her mother or her Nana, and so, most of the time, she falls back on that other old chestnut that Martin taught her, for dealing with her _own_ mother.

If you can't say something nice? Well...

At least have the decency to _whisper_.

So she keeps quiet (mostly) and even tries to not let it seethe inside her, to not let herself dwell on it - and _that's_ so obviously working, right? - and to try to see Amy's and Farrah's and Lucy's side of it all. She _tries_ and sometimes she even _succeeds_ , a bit, but it still feels… wrong. It still feels like a betrayal, though not of _her_ , not _really_. Of something bigger than just her, bigger than one or two broken hearts (even if one of those was her _wife's_ ), something like…

Them. _All_ of them.

See, the thing Reagan can't get past is that she _remembers_. She _so_ remembers that moment when Amy told her what Jack said, about why he left. And she remembers the first time Amy told Jack she hated him. She remembers the first time Amy punched him, the first time _she_ did, hell, she remembers the first time _Karma_ did - and yes, every one of those was a _first_ , not a _last_ , or an _only_ \- and she remembers how Farrah threatened him with severe bodily harm when she found out he was back and the way Shane glared and Lolo tensed every time he was near. It wasn't _just_ her.

They _all_ hated him.

And yes, Reagan knows that hate is a fuck all lousy thing for anyone to need to unify them, to bring them together and she gets it - she really does - that somewhere along the line, hating Jack got to be more work for them than it was worth.

You think she never had that moment? That she never _once_ thought about him with something other than hatred and disgust and disdain and a few more synonyms she can't think of right this _minute_?

Reagan looks out into the living room, smiling at the sight of Farrah and Bruce bouncing her daughter between them, laughing uproariously at her every smile and giggle.

_Her_ daughter. Katie.

"Katharine?" Amy asked her, in the hospital, as they laid her daughter in her arms for the first time? "I love it," she said. "But it wasn't on our list. What made you think of it?"

Reagan just shrugged and smiled and said she'd always thought it was a beautiful name and that _wasn't_ a lie. Not totally.

So, yeah, she's had that moment.

And maybe now she's _always_ having that moment, every time she talks to him, every time she _sees_ him and she finds herself cursing him under her breath for making her heart break - _hers_ , not her _wife's_ \- and for confusing her, for making it damn near impossible for her to tell anymore _why_ it breaks.

Why it's _breaking_.

If there's one lesson she's learned from Jack, it's this: it's so much fucking _easier_ to hate.

She's alone there, in the kitchen, and Reagan remembers standing right here, right next to this counter as Amy helped prep the meatballs and Farrah slapped Bruce's hand to keep him from stealing any more of the garlic bread - Martin's recipe - and Lauren looked on with a bemused look on her face, like she knew she was seeing the beginning of something special, and she remembers…

Candles. Trick fucking candles.

And fuck all… why did she have to remember _that_?

It takes her about half the steps to that closed door - fourteen, if you're counting along - before Reagan realizes she's even moving. But once she does, you might think she'd stop, you might think that the fact that she has never once set foot in that room since it became _his_ room, would be enough to bring her to a screeching halt.

And you'd be right.

But, if you'd think she wouldn't just shake it off, that she wouldn't just put it aside and start walking again?

Well, then _you're_ clearly living in the past, which is something you and Reagan might have had in common until about forty seconds ago but see, there it is _again_. Time. Living in the past is keeping yourself stuck in time.

And ain't nobody got time for _that_. Not Amy or Lucy or Farrah or - God, help her - not even Reagan. Not anymore.

She doesn't knock and Amy's not surprised it's her when the door opens. Anyone else _would've_ knocked, but Reagan's _not_ anyone else. "Hey," Amy says, not looking up from the spot on the bed where her hand is resting over her father's, neither of them moving. Reagan can't help but notice the stark contrast, the way Amy's skin's still suffused with pink, all the blood, the _life_ still flowing freely, and Jack is so…

He's pale. _That's_ the word for it. Pale. That's all he is. But it's not all he _almost_ is and Reagan has a moment - just one - where she wonders if this is _it_ , if that's why she's here, finally, after all this time, cause somehow she knows this is her last chance.

She's not wrong.

Jack's been stubborn and Jack's hung on, months longer than he should have, and every day seems like maybe it's _the_ day, but _damn_ does he keep fighting and lingering and…

Waiting.

"Where's Katie?" Amy asks, even though she already knows and Reagan suspects that her wife _knows_ , as in knows why she's here, in the doorway, unable - just yet - to take that one final step.

Again, she's not wrong.

"Your mom and Bruce have her," Reagan says and she knows she's whispering and she knows that's fucking pointless - Jack can't hear and even if he could, what difference, really? - but she can't stop. "We may have to fight them for her when it's time to leave."

A time, she thinks, that's coming faster for some of them than others.

Amy nods and stands, her thumb ghosting one last time across Jack's knuckles. "I'm gonna go see if I can steal a few minutes with my nephew then," she says and Reagan doesn't even think of pointing out that Luke isn't _really_ related, cause he so _is_ and none of _that_ is even remotely the point right now. "I'll be back in a little bit."

She pauses, just for a moment, as if she's waiting for Reagan to stop her, to tell her no, don't leave, I'm not staying with _him_ , what kinda cray cray talk is that? But when Reagan just nods and steps _into_ the room, so that she can step _out_ , there are tears in Amy's eyes and, this one time, they're _not_ about Jack.

The door shuts silently behind her and Reagan's alone. Alone _with him_ and that almost never happens but every time it ever has, she always says the same thing.

"I hate you."

In truth, she's lost track of how many times she's said that to him over the years. She know that probably says more about _her_ than it does about _him_ , like, for instance, that she's obsessive and possessive and vindictive and probably a few other 'ive's she doesn't know but she's sure apply.

But still…

"I hate you," she says _again_ , settling down into the chair next to the bed, the one Amy was just in. There's one on the other side as well, Lucy's, and somehow Reagan doesn't feel right in _that_ one, as if this one is somehow _perfect_. "Always have," she says, her hand resting on the _bed_ , not on _him_. "Always will. Dying isn't a get out of jail free card. Just so you know."

There's silence in the room and Reagan notices that she can't actually hear anything on the other side of the door. She knows they're out there.

But she's _in here_.

"Sometimes," she says, "I wonder. I know it's stupid and self-centered, but Lord knows I can be both of those from time to time."

He doesn't argue. He wouldn't if he could. And not _just_ because he learned not to argue with her - about _anything_ \- long ago.

Reagan scoots the chair a little closer, so she can rest her elbows on the edge of the bed. "I wonder… why? Why did you stay?" It sounds heartless, even to her, questioning an almost dead man's motivations, but… "I know you say… I know you _do_ love her. But, sometimes I can't help wondering how much of it was about Amy and how much of it… how _badly_ did you just once want to prove me wrong?"

_Ten bucks says you don't even make it to graduation_

That was the first time. Jack learned not to argue and he learned that, no matter what he _said_ and what _she_ said, Reagan was always right.

Except when she wasn't. And _that_ was almost always about _him_ and yeah, she suspects he took no small amount of joy in _that_. She would have, if she'd been him.

"I should have known," Reagan says. "I should have seen it was a sucker's bet. You're _her_ father and you're both living proof that stubborn is genetic."

She hears the word - 'living' - fall from between her lips and OK, maybe not the best choice there, but come on. It's not like she can offend him.

"You made it to graduation," she says, remembering him there, in the back, in the last row of the faculty. He was still the Hester art teacher back then, the cool Mr. Lee, even if, by then, they all knew that was really his _middle_ name. "You didn't cheer," she says. "Not for Amy or Lucy or for Liam." Her fingers clench and unclench atop the sheets "But I saw you. You didn't _need_ to cheer, did you?"

He _glowed_. Fatherly pride and yeah, she spent most of the ceremony staring daggers at him and thinking how… _wrong_ … it was that he got to feel even one _shred_ of that. She was so busy _staring_ , she almost missed Amy crossing the stage until Farrah almost toppled out of her seat from the sheer force of her whooping.

"I should have seen it _then_ ," Reagan says, as she leans forward, letting her forehead rest on her upturned palms. "It should have been so clear, the way it all worked. I would figure zig, so then you'd zag. I'd think left, so you'd go right. I'd think gone…"

He'd do _stay_.

When they left for New Orleans, she was _sure_. Like 100% certain, like _positive_ that there was a better chance Liam and Shane would end up a couple, than there was that Jack would still be there when they came back.

"Four years," she says. "Four fucking _years_ and _nothing_ here for you the whole time. It was so clear, so obvious." She shakes her head and almost smiles. "Amy actually considered staying, you know. In New Orleans. We'd made a life and a home and we were happy."

She leaves off the 'without you around'. Maybe she can't _offend_ , but there's no need to kick a man when he's down.

And who would have ever thought _she'd_ pass up a chance to kick _him_?

"I convinced her to come back. I talked her into moving home with Karma and the whole time, I was so sure…" Reagan leans back in the chair, forcing her hands into her lap. "I knew that you hadn't left yet, so I'd been wrong about that, but maybe it was just… timing."

He'd hung on, waiting out the college years. Waiting for his daughter to come home so they could pick up where they'd left off - not that _that_ was anywhere special - but Reagan was so very _sure_ (yes, _again_ ) that seeing Amy, the grown up and fully adulting Amy, would do the trick, would make Jack feel useless and pointless and make him wonder just how long it would be before his very smart and now very independent and not scared of _anything_ daughter cut him the fuck off. Like she should have, long long ago.

"You'd hightail it," Reagan says. "Either out of town or into a bar and no, it didn't really matter which. Same end result, you know?"

And he _did_ hightail it, he did _run_. Right to the nearest bank, where he took out a loan so he could expand the coffee shop - his foothold, his _foundation_ in Austin - and open a second location. Reagan fully expected it to fail.

She wasn't wrong then either.

But when it didn't do so well, Jack didn't throw _in_ the towel or throw _back_ a bottle (or six) and stuck it out, waiting and working and doing all the little things until it _did_ work and wouldn't you know that everyone (read: Amy and Farrah and even Lauren) was suitably impressed and, yet again, Jack had zigged instead of zagged.

"You persevered," she says and yeah, the word still tastes a little bitter on her tongue. "Just like you did with Amy. Except that was no coffee shop, was it?"

No. It wasn't. And - again (sense a pattern, yet?) - Reagan thought _that_ would be it, that the longer it took and the less progress he made with Amy, the more she made him jump through hoops and follow rules and the more nowhere he got for it…

"It would take a toll. It would drain and punish and _hurt_ and you don't deal well with that," she says - and she's not telling him anything he doesn't know - and she was _sure_ not _dealing well_ would eventually translate into _fucking up_ and, again, she wasn't wrong. Not entirely.

Jack fucked up. The second shop thrived, for a bit, right up until it didn't and then it sank like a stone and he almost lost everything. He tried dating one of his baristas but then he _cheated on_ one of his baristas _with_ one of his baristas and they both quit.

But he didn't.

Reagan remembers more, the long catalog list of the fuck ups of Jack. "You argued with Lucy so much about college that she didn't speak to you for three weeks," she says. "You thought buying Planter's was the dumbest thing ever and you begged Amy not to help me. You even went to Farrah, to try and get her to talk us out of it."

Remember how those _first_ punches weren't the _last_ punches?

Now, you know why.

Also, Farrah didn't talk them out of it. She chipped in.

"Every time," Reagan says. "Every time you could have… should have… just cashed out. Like when Lucy went to college and left _you_. You could've just moved with her, it's not like nobody else tailed a Raudenfeld girl off to school."

And even that wouldn't have been _wrong_ or _enough_. It wouldn't have been _leaving_ , yes, but not like _that_.

But he waited. He _stayed_. And then, when Lucy came back after graduation, they _did_ leave. A two month trip to Brazil and they sent Amy pictures every day, Skyped twice a week, and Jack was as stone cold sober - with a nice tan and a new appreciation for spicy food - when he came back as when he left and yeah, Reagan hadn't seen _that_ coming.

"You came back with her number, too," Reagan remembers, with a small smile that she can't quite kill, cause damn did Jack still have some game. "That little cutie from the surf shop. Her number and her email, but you still managed to fuck that up too, huh?"

He did. But she doesn't really remember _how_ , but she _does_ remember the way Jack shrugged it off when Amy asked him about it at her birthday dinner and - _now_ \- she remembers the way he was talking to _her_ , but staring at her _mother_ , and yeah, that probably explains all anyone really needs to know about the how.

Or at least the why.

He fucked up and he made messes and he ruined shit and any one or all of them… they should have been enough. They should have pushed him out of town, or out of his mind, or right into a scotch and soda - hold the soda - and every time Reagan was _sure_.

"I'm not usually wrong, you know," she says. "Not that much. Not that often."

Reagan sighs and tips back in the chair, her eyes falling to the nightstand beside his bed, to the frames sitting on it. They're those clear acrylic ones you can get for like 99 cents and she sees her own face smiling back up at her from one of them, right alongside Amy's and Katie's. She's all of three _hours_ old in that picture and Reagan still remembers that Bruce had to take it cause Farrah couldn't stop crying enough to focus.

Jack had asked for that picture, when he moved in, but Farrah wasn't sure that was the one he really _wanted_. "I can get you a different one," Farrah told him. "One of just Amy and the baby, if you'd like."

Subtlety was never Farrah's strong suit.

But Jack _hadn't_ liked. That one, he said, would do just fine. Reagan suspects he thought it would annoy her. Or that, maybe, he actually loved her too.

Yeah. No.

She plucks the frame from the table, cradling it in her hands. "Amy was three months along when the doctors told you," she says. "Three and a half when you told everyone else. Six months away."

Six months. For Katie. And for Jack.

They said it was a long shot. Six months was the outside, the far end of the scale, that anything past _three_ … well… that was just Jack living on borrowed time. Maybe, with treatment, the most _aggressive_ , they could… prolong things. Maybe. But he'd be in the hospital the whole time and his immune system would, basically, cease to _be_ and sure, if he could last long enough, he'd be able to _see_ the baby.

From behind glass and from a distance and that was only if he was _lucky_ and the docs, they didn't put all that much stock in luck. No matter what he did, it was going to be a race and it didn't seem the odds were in his favor.

Not that Jack listened and oh, _there's_ a shock. "I'm going to hold her," he said, even before they knew it… she… was a, well, _she_. "I'm not going to see her under glass, like some exhibit at the zoo." Oh, he told everyone exactly what was going to happen, he'd tell anyone he could get to listen - and it's probably not that surprising the number of people who suddenly listen when they know you're _dying_ \- that he was going to make it.

"With time to spare," he said. "I'll see her born. And then some."

Reagan sets the frame back down, and scoops up the other one, staring down at it like it's the first time she's ever seen it, not like she's the one who took it. "I remember," she says, "when Amy suggested that maybe she get induced a little early. So you could 'beat the clock'."

It was probably the only time Reagan can ever remember seeing Jack angry with Amy or raising his voice to her.

And it was _definitely_ the only time she could remember agreeing with him. Or understanding why.

She stares at the picture. Jack and Katie, both as bald as can fucking be, both looking right _at her_ , and Goddamn if her little girl doesn't have her grandfather's eyes. "You made it," Reagan says, softly. "You made it. You got to see her born… and then some."

She sets the picture back down, carefully, and turns to the bed and then her hand… it's on his and he can't _take it_ and, truthfully, Reagan isn't even sure he's still really there. But Amy is and Lucy is and she's not going to take that from them.

She's spent long enough trying to take Jack away.

"I hate you," she whispers. "I hated you before I ever met you. Because you hurt her. Because you somehow got it in your stupid head that _leaving_ her was _better_ for her and I will never _ever_ be able to understand how anyone could leave her. Ever."

Her eyes flick to the picture. Her and Amy and Katie and no, she can't ever imagine a time when leaving her daughter would be anything close to an option. But then, she doubts Jack ever could either. Not until he did. Not until the math just added up.

_Because of you. I'm leaving because of you_.

"You said it wrong," Reagan says. "Not 'because of'. _For_. You left for her, before you and Farrah _ruined_ each other and she had to watch."

A little pain, Jack had figured, was worth it. A little hurt, a little loss… well… it _was_ math.

Her eyes drift to the other picture, to his smiling face, and yeah, the smile is as big as the world, but his… he's…

"I remember when I took it," she says. "I remember thinking you shouldn't have been there. Not because I didn't _want_ you to be, cause I _did_. But you should've been…"

Gone.

Until the day she dies, Reagan will never tell anyone, not even Amy, about the next few minutes, about the way she presses her cheek against his hand - so cold, already - or about the way she heaves and sobs, like she did in Farrah's arms so many years ago. _Those_ are the first and last tears she sheds over Jack.

And they're just for her.

When they've passed, when she's got herself back in one piece, Reagan stands, still holding his hand in hers. She leans over him, memories of a coffee shop table and a stupid fucking bet that she'd lost even before she made it, flooding her mind. She kisses him, one soft press of the lips atop his head, and she whispers.

"You left for one little girl, Jack. And you stayed for another. And I swear to you, I'll take good care of them both for as long as I live." She squeezes his hand one last time. "It's OK," she says. "You can rest now."

Reagan walks from the room and down the hall and out the front door without a pause, without slowing or speaking to anyone. Lauren starts to follow, but Amy catches her arm and shakes her head. Reagan climbs into her truck - not Lightning, not anymore, cause some things _do_ change - and she drives without thinking, though she knows where she's going the entire time.

The text from Amy comes as she's leaning over Martin's stone, her fingers tracing the letters of _her_ father's name.

_He's gone._

"Take good care of him, dad," she whispers. "He earned it."

 


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Yeah, I know. Been a bit. But we're getting to the end now. This will end with Chapter 50, so it's almost done and hopefully it won't take as long between chapters. Anybody still out there? I mean, I'll finish either way (it's just for me, after all), but hey throw a monkey a bone if you're still following along as I work on wrapping everyone up. This begins the endgame for Lauren and Glenn and oh, look - Theo! Read, review, threaten, you know the drill.

 

**_Seven years from now_ **

What if?

Well, that's just a _loaded_ fucker of a question isn't it? The kind most people know better than to ask, but _knowing_ better and _doing_ better… well… those are two very different things. Especially for Amy.

As we've established. More than once.

But that was all younger Amy and this is older Amy (though not _that_ much older, and still looking _good_ for her age, or _any_ age, or so Reagan says), but, honestly, it'll probably still take _years_ or maybe _decades_ for that particular lesson to really sink in and, clearly, it _hasn't_ just yet.

If it had… well…

Her sister would be speaking to her right now, now wouldn't she?

There are more than a few things she's done in her life that Amy's second guessed. Or triple guessed (thruple guessed?) or quadruple or… 'whatever the fuck five _is'_ guessed. It's part of who she is, in her nature - right down to her DNA, and thank you very fucking much Jack and Farrah - _and_ her nurture. Her mother (and Karma) and her disappearing father (and Karma) and, basically, the entirety of her high school existence (and Karma), at least the parts _before_ Reagan, had her questioning _everything_ , even her gayness and, even now, she still spends far too much time doubting her choices.

Not _about_ her gayness, though. But, you know, about things like _using_ (or even thinking) the _word_ 'gayness'. And not about Reagan - who, sometimes (read: _all_ the times) Amy's so very exceptionally glad is fluent in speaking Amy - or her choice to forgive Jack or being OK with Karma and Lucy (or OK- _ish_ , it's a work in progress) or her choice to let Reagan name Katie cause, let's face facts.

Katharine is a _far_ better name than 'little ball of snot and poop that never lets me sleep' even if that one might _still_ be more _accurate_.

But, of all those things, this one, this very specific and very definitive and very 'how can you be so fucking _stupid_ , don't you remember what he _did_ , and oh… I just called you 'stupid' and _that's_ why you're giving me that look right now, isn't it, well… tough titty, cause I'm _right_ ' one is so _not_ among those things she's second or third or fourth or infinity and fucking _beyond_ guessed cause this one is her sister and this one is Theo and this one is so clear cut and so _obvious_ that there's no way even she can have gotten it wrong.

Except… you know… what _if_?

He cheated on her, she says. Except 'says' was kinda only in her head and so… "He _cheated_ on her," she says, _again_ and _out loud_ this time and, apparently, much to the surprise of her wife and her brother-in-law who's, now, her brother-in-law twice (bro in law squared?) and yeah, she knows that _he_ knows that Theo cheated, maybe better than all of them, so "Why do you look so fucking surprised?"

Glenn shrugs and Amy steams cause that's his default answer to _everything_. You want another beer? Shrug. You think the Stars will make the playoffs this year? Shrug. Is Lauren 100% the best thing to ever happen to you? Shrug.

He slept on the couch for a week after that one and, if baby Martin hadn't developed a wicked case of 'oh, if I can't sleep, then _no one_ can colic', Amy suspects - quite rightly - that Glenn's banishment might have been _longer_.

Like, you know, until _forever_.

But, really, a shrug? For _this_?

"She's going to invite him," Amy says - and she makes sure to say it out loud the _first_ time, this time - and then she corrects herself. "She's going to invite _them_."

Reagan eyes her across the counter, pausing in mid-sip of her way too fucking hot coffee (Amy doesn't know how to make it any other way and her wife _wishes_ , like with all her heart, that _that_ might be one of those things she'd second guess), one brow lifting off just _slightly_ at the way she said 'them', hushed, in a whisper, like it's a state secret she's gotta hide away or some tiny bit of profanity she doesn't want the baby to hear, or as if, by saying out loud, she might just magically conjure 'them' up and make 'them' appear.

No matter what she says or does, Reagan can never quite convince Amy that Harry Potter isn't secretly real. It's like a fucking _religion_ with her, which she supposes - all religions considered - could be worse.

" _Them_ ," Amy says, again, a bit louder this time as Glenn, apparently, didn't reply fast enough and, Reagan knows, in the language of 'Amy', speed often equals volume, which is annoying in conversation, but can be kinda… fun… in certain other ways. But this is _not_ one of those ways and when Glenn shrugs - _again_ \- Amy wishes (almost out loud) that _she_ could put him on the fucking couch.

(Not the _fucking_ couch, as in the place of the fucking, but the other kind of fucking couch and no, she doesn't really know how to explain the difference but see, this is what happens when that damn man gets her all worked up like this.)

(And not worked up like _that_ and oh, that all sounded less dirty _before_ she said it so, fortunately, she only said it to herself.)

(This time.)

What kind of couch doesn't matter (much) cause what _does_ matter is that "She's going to invite her ex-husband and his _wife_ and their _kid_ to _your_ son's baptism." Amy's damn near yelling now and Reagan hopes Lolo stays upstairs with the baby cause, really, the silent fucking War of the Roses thing she and Amy have going on _now_ is bad enough without Amy finding a way to make it worse.

You know, like Amy _does_.

"He's her son, too, you know," Glenn says, without so much as even a hint of a shrug and Amy _immediately_ misses it, though she _doesn't_ miss the smirk on her wife's face - Reagan _loves_ the way her brother can get under her wife's skin - and oh, _someone's_ definitely gonna be couching it tonight. "And," Glenn adds, much to Amy's even further annoyance, "she can invite whoever she'd like. What do you want me to do? Forbid her?" He shakes his head. "I'm not Lauren's boss, Amy."

That, it should be noted, was in their wedding vows.

I, Glenn Ramon Solis, promise to love, honor, and cherish you, Lauren Elizabeth Cooper, and to always remember that I am your _partner_ and that you are not the boss of me, _usually,_ just as I am not the boss of you.

_Ever_.

Amy _remembers_ the words (almost as clearly as she remembers trying not to snort out loud at the ceremony) and she knows Glenn takes his vows seriously, like they were, you know, _vows_ and that that isn't _just_ because he's (rightfully) terrified of his wife.

It's also (read: mostly) (read: like _sickeningly, worshipfully,_ damn near _painfully_ ) cause he loves his wife, in a way Amy didn't know anyone could love anyone else - at least anyone that _wasn't_ her and Reagan - and in a way that makes her almost grateful Theo was ( _is_ ) such a dirty, rotten cheating fuckwit.

If she could have chosen a man for her sister, Amy knows that man would have been a lot like Glenn.

Just, you know, a little less shrug-y and _a lot_ more listening to her-y.

Amy hangs her head - sensing defeat, already - and curses under her breath, dropping a nearly inaudible 'mierda' (with an _almost_ passable accent), and Reagan smiles at the way her wife's still stuck in the habit of swearing in Spanish, the little trick they picked up when Katie was still a tiny tiny and they were trying not to expose her to 'all the Goddamned profanity you two use', as Farrah put it (without a single drop of irony.) Spanish - and a bit of French and a couple of really useful all purpose Portuguese cusses Karma taught them - was their compromise when going cold turkey just didn't work.

After all, asking them to cut the four letter words out of their vocabulary was like asking Amy to cut bacon out of her diet or asking Karma to cut plans out of her… plans… or asking Lauren to stop hating Theo and… oh…

Yeah. Maybe, _apparently_ , not the _best_ example.

Amy knows she's not going to convince Glenn to put his foot down and knows even _better_ that it would only result in a foot _up_ his ass if he did, so she tries another angle. "So, you're telling me that _you're_ OK with this?" she asks and Glenn doesn't shrug (so Amy doesn't _punch_ ) but he also doesn't say 'yes' or 'no' or 'not exactly' or, even, 'Lauren's OK with it and since I'd like to sleep _in_ my bed sometime before my son gets to high school, yes, I'm just fucking _fine_ with it and thank you for _asking_ ' so, clearly, he's somewhat _less_ than OK and while that probably doesn't matter, it's still _something_.

Something, Reagan knows, Amy's going to seize on and not let go and while there are certain times (read: in bed) (read: or the shower or the beach or that one time in the Planter's parking lot) when she's so very _grateful_ for her wife's… determination… this doesn't strike her as one of _those_ times. "Shrimps, baby, maybe this is something you should leave for Lolo and -"

Remember that question? What if?

What if, in that moment, Amy doesn't hold up a hand to shush her wife? Or, what if, she doesn't shush her _and_ walk right past her - like she's not even there - crossing the kitchen to stand just a bit closer to Glenn? Or, what if, she _doesn't_ ignore Reagan's warning and _doesn't_ keep right on pushing the issue and _doesn't_ , as only Amy can, make it even worse by not noticing Lauren standing in the kitchen door?

Well, if Amy hadn't done any of that, then maybe she wouldn't have had to spend an hour that night trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in on the recliner in her office cause she sure as _fuck_ wasn't sleeping in the bed and oh, funny thing, Reagan just happened to… suggest to Katie (the kid) and Lucky (the lab) and Ruby (the beagle) that they have a 'camping out night' on the couch.

And oh, if only that had been her only _problem_. But it wasn't - it _so_ wasn't - cause, see, as little as Amy's learned about not second guessing herself, she's learned even _less_ about recognizing signs, like when someone knows something but, really, that something is none of _your_ business or when, maybe, there's a secret that someone - or a _couple_ someones, or maybe a _thruple_ of someones - is keeping and you ought to just fucking trust them that keeping it from you is for your own good.

Or, you know, _theirs_.

"He fucking _cheated_ on her, Glenn," Amy says, still ignoring Reagan's frantic and almost pained and pleading 'Shrimps'. "Theo cheated on her in her bed _and_ he broke her heart _and_ he ruined her damn life."

The words leave her mouth and she _hears_ them but she doesn't quite _believe_ them or, at least, believe that they came from _her_ \- or that the gasp she hears behind her comes from her wife or that the 'what the _fuck,_ Amy' from the door comes from her sister - and Amy wants to say she's sorry, she wants to say she didn't mean it (she didn't, at least not like _that_ ) and she wants Glenn to shrug, to just blow it all of cause, you know, that's what he _does_ , except that he doesn't.

He doesn't even look at her and if there was a couch nearby right then and there, Amy would exile herself to it immediately but then Glenn _does_ look up - at his wife - and she nods, slowly and he turns back to Amy and, funnily enough, we're back to where we started.

Back to that question.

"But what if," Glenn says. "What if he _didn't_?"

* * *

_**Five Years Ago** _

The knock comes a few days _after_ Theo expected it would and the face on the other side of the door… well… it's not the one (or the pair) he planned on, but he knows that he _shouldn't_ be at all surprised.

But he is.

(Also: he's grateful, for more than one reason, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

"I thought for sure she'd send Tyson and Holyfield," he says, stepping to one side so Glenn can come in. In truth, he's a more than a little bit relieved Lauren _didn't_ send her sister and her best friend. That might have gotten ugly and painful.

For, you know, _him_. And, you know, more ugly and painful than this already is cause it's plenty ugly - getting caught with your pants down is usually like that - and it's _more_ than plenty painful cause, you know, getting caught with your pants down _by_ your wife with someone who is so _not_ your wife gives said wife one hell of an easy target for her very very so fucking _very_ pointy toed shoes.

Theo walked with a limp for a week and even he knows that was the _least_ of what he deserved.

Glenn steps into the house and it feels fucking weird, kinda like he _hasn't_ done it a _million_ times before, but, of course, back then it was Theo _and_ Lauren's and now… it's _not_. Maybe it's still the same house, with all the same rooms and all the same furniture and the same everything, but it's not the _same_ , not at all, and he can't help wondering if Theo feels it too. "You do still remember I was a soldier, right?"

He doesn't even look at Theo - he's not entirely sure he's going to be _able_ to, not without getting a bit… upset or, truthfully, _more_ upset - but he _does_ hold up one hand, wiggling his pinky finger in the other man's direction and he feels it, the shift in the air, as Theo leans up against the door, fidgeting just slightly further away, out of 'I can kill you with a finger' (and would) (he absolutely fucking would, if Lauren would just _let_ him) range and yeah…

Message received.

Reagan and Amy might have punched him (not _might_ ) and it might have hurt (oh, it so fucking _would_ ), but Theo knows he would've gotten back up from that - Liam and Jack did and, face it, he's bigger and stronger than either of them though, apparently he's also more of a fucking _shit_ , which no one would have thought possible - but if Glenn decided to get physical?

All he'd need was someone to tell him where to hide the body. And _Theo's_ got a pretty good inkling that _Lauren_ would have all kinds of good ideas about _that_.

"Everything you're here for is over there," Theo says with a nod, careful to keep himself just out of reach - like that would really help - indicating the three stacks, a trio of cardboard mountains, box upon box, packing tape begetting packing tape and even though all the stacks are so very clearly - like in big bold permanent black marker letters clearly - marked 'Lauren', Glenn can't resist playing the asshole, just a little.

"Which ones?" he asks with a smirk that shifts to a grin - and not the 'yo, man, s'up?' grin the two men usually shared - as he hears Theo sigh behind him. It's settling in, Glenn knows, the slow realization that nope, he's not going to make this any easier - though a bit potentially less _physically_ painful - than his sister and her wife would have.

Theo points, risking his putting his arm in striking distance. "To the left," he says.

He shouldn't. Glenn _knows_ he shouldn't. He knows there's nothing funny about this - and if he thought there ever was, the memory of Lauren sobbing herself to sleep on his couch every night for the last three weeks has easily disabused him of _that_ \- and he knows all too very fucking well that this Theo is _not_ the same Theo he shared beers with and watched basketball with and hung out with while they both did everything they could (which wasn't always enough or even _close_ to it) to ignore that they were both in love with the same woman.

This, he knows, is no time for jokes. But, _come on_. 'To the left?'

It comes out without warning and - he'll claim till the day he dies - without him even _choosing_ to say it. It's a blurt, an impulse that skips the brain and goes straight to the tongue and, before he can stop himself, Glenn's singing (or what _passes_ for singing with him.) "To the left, to the left," he croons. "Everything you own in a box to the left…"

Theo snorts behind him and, for just a second, they're… them… again and, for just that same second, they both forget that they're never going to be 'them' again. They've always made an odd pair, shoved together by being the only 'boys' in their little family and no, Liam didn't count cause he was always on the outside looking in and Lauren may have forgiven but Theo never ever did, or would and Shane was a guy, but… well…

Shane's a guy and a good one at that and they both love him but he's _Shane_.

They were brothers, of a sort, not like _legally_ or anything - the brother in law of a sister in law doesn't have an _exact_ term, like an in law twice removed or some such shit - but, if you asked anyone, they'd be hard pressed to think of a Raudenfeld or Solis family gathering that hadn't seen Theo and Glenn holed up somewhere, usually with Bruce, talking basketball and football and whatever other balls came up.

And ignoring the _fuck_ out of the tiny blonde elephant in the room.

Theo hums a few bars and then he catches himself, realizing a few notes too late that he's not meant to be enjoying this moment, like _not at all_. It feels, to him, kinda like he's cheating all over again.

Sort of.

(Getting ahead again. Just wait.)

"Didn't know you knew Beyonce," he says which is, _clearly_ , among the most ridiculous things he's ever said cause who _doesn't_ know Bey?

Glenn shrugs. "Not like I'm a card carrying Beyhive member," he says, eyeing the stacks of boxes. "But she was clearly the best of Destiny's children, you know?"

He glances back at Theo and, not for the first time, there's a rush of anger, of crippling sadness, of blood burning _anger_ that comes over him and he has to look away, lest he find himself doing something about it. He wonders if Theo really gets what he's done, if he understands just how far and how wide and how deep the damage he's done reaches. The Theo he knew would've, he'd have _totally_ gotten it.

But then, Glenn figures, the Theo he knew wouldn't have done it in the first place. That Theo never would have brought home some skanky little… skank and he sure as hell wouldn't have touched her or kissed her or…

Glenn focuses on the boxes, on the neatly stacked,secured, and packed away remnants of Lauren's former life - and it is _her_ life, that Glenn's thinking about (mostly) - and tries not to wonder how he could have ever misjudged someone so badly.

And ignore that nagging little tug at the back of his head that just says _no fucking way_ cause, obviously, _fucking way_. Lauren _saw_.

She _saw_.

Theo speaks up and brings Glenn back to reality. "I'm..." He shakes his head at the crack, the tiniest little hiccup of a thing, in his voice and God, how he's wishing it really had been Amy and Reagan on the other side of the door cause at least maybe he'd be unconscious for this. "I'm, um, gonna grab a beer and hang out on the porch," he says. "Better to be out of the way like that."

Glenn nods like it's the most logical thing he's ever heard - and it _does_ make sense - and keeps right on staring at those boxes as Theo slips past him and on down the hall and then, and _only_ then, does he steal a glance at the stairs, a move he _immediately_ (is there something _sooner_?) regrets..

_Lauren, maybe you should wait..._

What if, he wonders - for about the one zillionth time - she'd listened to him. What if she hadn't charged up those stairs and down the short hall and through her bedroom door (for what would be the last time) and found… well…

The end. That's what she found. The fucking end. Kinda _literally_.

Glenn's tried so very hard to not blame himself, mostly cause he knows that's just _stupid_ \- he wasn't the one who hadn't managed to keep it in his pants, after all - but it's hard (absolutely

_no_ pun intended) not to feel at least a little responsible. He'd seen the car in the drive, the car that _wasn't_ Theo's, same as Lauren had. He'd heard the noises, the laughter and the moans and the voices that weren't supposed to be there, same as Lauren had. He'd felt that sinking feeling in his gut, that sudden drop, like the world stopped turning and the gravity just fucking _quit_ and he was left adrift, nothing to anchor him, all those things that had moored his life to normal just ripped away, even before he'd seen a thing.

Same as Lauren.

Or, you know, maybe not _exactly_ the same, but close enough, it had all been _close enough,_ they'd been two peas in a pod (they were 'twinning', as his niece might say) right until that moment, right up until they weren't. When he froze.

And Lauren didn't.

Glenn's tortured himself about it ever since. He's laid awake so many nights, asking himself that same fucking question.

No. _Not_ 'what if'.

Oh, he's asked _that_ too. What if he hadn't froze, what if he'd done something - _anything_ \- other than calling out to her, so weakly, so meekly, so… so like he didn't mean it, like he didn't really want her to stop. And there it is, there's the question Glenn's been beating himself to a mental and emotional pulp with.

Why?

Why didn't he stop her? Why didn't he try harder? Why didn't he do something to try and, at least, shield her from some of it? He loves her, or so he claims (in his head, only to himself, never once out loud except that one time to Katie, but who is _she_ gonna tell?) and yet…

And yet he let her charge up those stairs - _alone_ \- and walk in on her husband with his pants gone and his mistress very much _not_ gone and his hands on her hips and his lips on hers and

Glenn heard the muffled moan of a kiss interrupted by a scream (he's never known if it was _her_ or Lauren and he thinks, maybe, that's better) and then…

It's Lauren. You can imagine the 'and then'. Though, maybe, you might not want to.

He could have stopped her. OK… he could have _tried_ and then, maybe, his conscience would be a bit clearer, maybe there'd be a bit less guilt and a bit less doubt and a lot more room in his head and heart for doing what he's supposed to be doing, which is being Lauren's friend, being supportive, and being the one (or, really, one of the _ones_ ) hating the fuck out of Theo for hurting her.

Except…

Except instead of doing what he's supposed to be doing - _literally_ , in this case, since he's not walking those boxes out to his sister's truck in the driveway - Glenn's doing the exact _opposite_ , instead of leaving, like he knows he should, he's turning and walking into the house, through the kitchen, down the four stairs to the back, and out onto the porch and if Theo's at all surprised to see him there, he doesn't show it.

He probably expected it. A Solis staying when they should be going?

Must be in the DNA.

Glenn settles in the chair closest to the door, the one he _always_ sits in, the only one that _doesn't_ have it's back to the door and no, nobody ever asks why or what happened… over there… that left him with the unshakable need to limit the exposure cause, well, nobody ever asks _anything_ about over there and he never talks about it.

Except to Katie on those nights when she was a tiny tiny and he babysat to give his sister and Amy a little break and he said a whole bunch of things he never should have said but, _again_ , who is she going to tell?

(Besides, you know, her shrink when she's older.)

"It doesn't make sense," he says and Theo doesn't look at him or ask what 'it is', though there's a list of possible 'it's' a mile long. "I've gone over it and over it," Glenn says, trying not to get a bit… bothered when Theo still just slowly sips his beer. "And all I ever come up with is that either you're the stupidest fuck alive or…"

He trails off (yeah, cause the trail off ever ends well) and lets it dangle there, hanging between them, and if he's waiting for a reaction?

He's gonna be there a while.

'You remember the day she caught you?" Glenn asks and _yes_ , it is mostly a rhetorical question cause, _duh_ , Theo's probably got a vague recollection. "You remember where she was?"

The words 'with you' trip off Theo's tongue with the kind of ease reserved for basic facts of the universe: water's wet, the sky's blue, Liam Booker was a manwhore of epic proportions, you know, the _obvious_ stuff.

Glenn's surprised - just a bit - by the way it stings, by the sudden sharp pang of guilt he feels in his gut, like _he's_ the one in the wrong here, like _he_ did something bad. He didn't, not _really_ , but he remembers enough Sunday school to remember there's some sort of rule about not coveting another man's wife, but coveting ain't _cheating_.

And rules? Don't get Glenn started on _rules_.

_**Rule #1: Do the right thing, always, and you don't need any more fucking rules.** _

Though, technically, coveting is probably _not_ the right thing, but he's just going to ignore _that_ , OK?

"We had that conference," he says, ignoring the insinuation he isn't totally _sure_ Theo meant to make cause, well, it's easier that way. "The one for the mayor, to kick start his campaign for governor," he says. "And it was supposed to run all day, remember? Till like five or six, at _least_."

Theo takes another sip of his beer. A bit slower this time.

"We weren't _supposed_ to be back," Glenn says. His fingers are digging into the armrest of the chair, his nails chipping the wood, not that he notices. "We were _supposed_ to be gone all day and then go to dinner after and we weren't _supposed_ to be here _then_."

'But you were'. That's what _Theo's_ supposed to say. If there was a script for this -like the whole thing was some crazy ass plot twist cooked up by some whackadoo writer typing away at a tiny little computer at a tiny little desk and oh, then it would make so much more _sense_ \- then Theo's next line would be 'but you were' and he'd say it all bitter and angry like, as if it was Glenn's fault that he and Lauren showed up when they did, like he was blaming everyone but himself like all the cheating asshats, like him, do.

Theo says nothing. Not a thing. Not a single fucking _word_ and so, no, he's not following the script, like _not at all_.

"She's always figured that was it," Glenn says, like 'always' is 'forever' or 'for so very long' and not just for three tear filled weeks. "That was what made you think you could get away with it, why you thought… why you _dared_ to bring _her_ here."

A schedule. A plan. A Lauren Cooper devised and laid out _event_ (that went off without a hitch, that went off _perfectly_ ) that had a set start and end time and Theo had to know, he had to be so sure off all the timing cause, _come on_ , it was 'Campaign by Lauren'.

Who could blame him for thinking it was safe?

Glenn stands, tugging his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his messages. It takes him a minute - his phone's been bombarded by texts recently, the 'I'm crying and alone at two in the fucking morning' kind in particular - but he finds the one he's looking for and reads it and then he reads it again.

Just to be sure.

_T-Money: How's it going? Everything on track?_

He tosses the phone down on the table in front of Theo, and he's not surprised - much - when he doesn't even look at it, doesn't even check the reply.

Or, you know, the _evidence_.

"I texted you back," Glenn says, settling back down into 'his' chair, hands on his knees. "I told you it was all going great, _so_ great, better than even Lauren could have planned and we both know that's gotta be pretty fucking _awesome_."

Theo sips his beer and stares straight ahead. He says nothing, _still_.

But yeah, he _knows_.

Glenn runs one hand through his hair, which is kinda pointless since he still keeps it buzzed to his damn _scalp_ and there's nothing to run _through_ , but it's a nervous habit, a tic, the sort of thing he did when he was younger and he was asking Amanda King to the prom. He's worried… no, not _worried._

He's _scared_.

He's fucking terrified, worried that he's right and maybe a little more worried that he's _not_ and he doesn't know what he's going to do with either, but he's still gotta try, he's gotta push on cause, you know, he _froze._

He owes her this much.

"I told you," Glenn says. "I told you things were going to finish up early and we were going to stop home before the dinner." He watches Theo's fingers close tighter around the beer. "I told you we'd be here. You knew. You knew and you brought… _her_ … here anyway."

'What can I say' and 'thrill of danger, the risk of getting caught' and 'she got off on it' all come spilling out of Theo in a jumble, a mess of words that run together and if _that_ didn't make them sound rehearsed - like he's been _waiting_ for this - the fact that he can't even look at Glenn, that he pushes the beer and the phone away and lets his head fall into his hands…

Yeah, Glenn can read _that_ tell. Hell… _Karma_ could.

"You _wanted_ to get caught." Glenn says - fuck 'says', he _snarls_ \- his hands balling into fists in his lap. "You wanted Lauren to see you with her, you wanted to hurt her -"

"It was the lesser pain," Theo blurts and then cusses himself under his breath. He didn't mean to say it, he'd sworn to himself that he _wouldn't_. "This is why," he mutters, " _this_ is why I wished she'd send _them_."

Amy and Reagan wouldn't have pushed because they wouldn't have known and, more to the point, neither of them would have _cared_. They'd have punched first, not asked questions at all, loaded all the boxes second and, probably, punched _again_.

And he'd have deserved them. _That_ would probably be the only thing Theo might think that they'd agree with.

"What the _fuck_ does that mean?" Glenn snaps. He's forcing himself to stay in the chair - not that he'd actually, you know, _use_ his pinky (probably) - trying to give Theo a chance to explain, even if he can't, for the fucking _life_ of him, think of anything that could explain any of this. "You think finding you and _her_ was somehow 'lesser'?" His fingers curl the air quotes around the word as it burns its way off his tongue.

"There's degrees, Glenn," Theo says. "Degrees of _everything_. Love and hate and… pain. And yeah, as much as it killed her, Lauren finding us that way _was_ the lesser pain, like a thousand degree burn compared to falling into the sun. I know it sucks and it's ripping her up, but she'll get through it."

He says it like there's another option and not _just_ some other, fucking mythical pain that Lauren couldn't get through. There's no such thing, no such pain or challenge or obstacle she just _can't_ overcome. Glenn _knows_ that. He's sure of very little in this world, but he's _positive_ of that.

"She'll get through it by hating you," he says. "By despising you and cursing you and regretting the day she ever met you." All of which, he _doesn't_ mention, Lauren's already doing in fucking _spades_. "And _that_ , all of that anger and hate, it _will_ burn like the sun, but it'll never last. It just _can't_. Sooner or later, it's going to burn itself out and then? Lauren will be _empty_. You'll have your little whore, but she'll be _alone_ and _that's_ what's going to fill in those hollow, empty, burned out places you left in her."

Theo snorts - a bitter and angry grunt of a thing and, really, where the fuck does _he_ get off with _that_ \- and shakes his head, ignoring the bits about the damage he did (he doesn't need Glenn to remind him, the ring _still_ on his finger does that just fine) and focusing, instead, on the one thing that he can even kinda get upset about.

"I think we both know the last thing Lauren's going to be is _alone_."

And there it is. The heart of the matter. The elephant in the room who isn't even there but can't be ignored any more.

"Fuck you," Glenn says - and so much for 'brothers' - pushing his way up and out of his chair and now he's the one with the burning suns scorching just beneath his skin. "If you think I would ever use this to -"

"I don't," Theo says and the edge has slipped from his voice, the knife edged words sheathed again. He slumps back over the table and Glenn doesn't know what to make of it, or how to process the way this guy he thought he knew so well is shifting gears right in front of him. "I'd never think that. Not of you and not of her." He laughs again and this time it's almost genuine and not at all bitter of angry. "Hell, if you even _tried_ , I'm pretty sure your sister would fuck your shit up, family or not."

He's not wrong.

"But you'll be there," he says. "Like you're always there. Like you've stayed all along, when you knew her heart was somewhere else and you didn't care." Theo looks at him, _finally_ , and it's all right there in his eyes. "You love her. You love her the way that I did… the way I _do_ … and that means you'll stay." He looks away, biting at his lip, the pain keeping the tears at bay. "Always."

There's an obvious retort, a clear comeback just teed up for him and Glenn sees it, right there, just waiting. But that's just it, isn't it? It's _obvious_ , it's _clear_ , it's _easy_ and all of this, from them walking in on Theo and _her_ to Lauren having his shoulder to cry on to Theo not even fighting the divorce at all - he offered her the house, for fuck's sake (she said no) (for, again, all the _obvious_ reasons) has been like that.

Obvious. Easy. Clear.

He's the bad guy, the cheating dick, the loser who threw away _years_ \- his entire life since _high school_ \- for a cheap side piece.

Yeah. Obvious. Easy.

And, suddenly, it's all a lot more clear.

"What's her name?" Glenn asks and Theo's head snaps up. "Your mistress. What's her name?"

"What?"

Glenn bites back the 'did I stutter?', trying to keep his temper in check. "What's her name?" he asks, again. "Where did you meet? How long was it going on? You gonna marry her, now? Is she even interested in that, or was this just about fucking a married man?" He takes a step to the table, leans over it, looming - as much as someone a good foot fucking shorter can - over Theo. "What's. Her. Name?"

Theo scoots back, just a little. "What's. _Your_. Point?"

Well… _fuck._ Just… total and absolute _fuck_. Like _all_ the fucks all in one _place_ and that place?

Right smack between Glenn and Lauren. Because now, he knows. Maybe not all of it, maybe not _exactly_ why - but just wait, he'll get there - but he knows enough.

"You threw it away on purpose," he says and Theo doesn't argue the point so, yeah, _fuck_. "You made sure you did the one thing she'd never forgive and no, that's not the cheating. It's being made to look a fool. And you made sure… with _my_ help… that she caught you."

Glenn staggers back and falls down into his chair. His brain… it doesn't work this way, it doesn't think like his sister's or Amy's or even Karma's ( _especially_ not Karma's.) He sees everything in all it's simplest of terms, in kill or be killed, be happy or not, love or don't. The messes Reagan told him about from back when she and Amy first got together? They're as foreign and as weird to Glenn as carrying an M-16 through a fucking desert would be to his sister or to her wife or to Karma (yes, _especially_ Karma, _again_.)

So, this?

Yeah… this is some Star Wars live long and prosper world of wizarding he who shall not be named _shit_.

(And yes, he knows those are all different. He's spent far too fucking long around Amy not to.)

"You had it all," Glenn says and he's incredibly proud that he keeps the judgement out of his voice. " _Everything_. You've been in love with her since high school, you survived four years apart in college, you had the most sickeningly fairy tale wedding that I've ever seen, and you threw it all away, on _purpose_ , when you had everything you ever wanted."

"I know," Theo says so simply, so _obviously_. "But that's just it. What if… it wasn't _everything_?"


	48. Chapter 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some closure for everyone's favorite (or second favorite) blonde and next chapter: Wedding! (or rehearsal for wedding. Close enough, right?)

The knock comes a few  _years_  after Theo expected it would (he thought he was  _safe_ ), and the face on the other side of the door? Yeah,  _she's_  not the one he planned on - he was expecting the FedEx guy and Steve (that's his name) (Theo knows him well) (Mrs. Theo orders a lot) (like  _a lot_ ) doesn't look  _a thing_  like Lauren, but it's not like he knew it was gonna be her when he got to the door.

If he had… well… he wonders, briefly, if it would make him somewhat less of a man if, instead of answering, he ran and hid, like maybe under the bed - he's assuming that the very very very  _last_  place Lauren would want to go is anywhere  _near_  his  _bed_  - though, if he's logical about it, he'd be better off choosing a place just a bit  _higher_  up.

Cause, you know,  _tiny_  Lauren.

Tiny in  _height_ only and it takes all of three seconds and one glare and the sight of both her fists clenched at her side for Theo to remember that height ain't everything.

With her? It ain't  _anything_.

So, he wonders (briefly) if it would make him less of a man and then, even  _more_  briefly (cause  _easy_  answer) if he cares that it would.

It takes all of  _two_  seconds and the sight of both those fists for him to answer.

Oh. Fuck. No.

Which is, ironically, the very first thought that runs through his mind when he opens the door to see her standing there (lie) (the  _first_  thought:  _damn, she's aged_ well) (which is fucking ridiculous cause it's been like a  _few_  years, not a  _decade_  or some shit, so he's being totally sexist, but also, she  _has_  aged well, as in almost  _not at all_  and Theo is suddenly very self-conscious of the grays dotting his head, sorta like Obama halfway through his first term except, you know, not remotely as  _distinguished_.)

So, first thought:  _hot_  (basically). Second thought: the aforementioned Oh. Fuck. No. Third thought:  _I hope she's not armed_.

Fourth thought:  _Actually, I hope she is, cause it'll be a quicker death and maybe there'll be a bit of evidence and my murder - my totally_ justified  _murder - won't go unsolved._

And then comes the fifth thought which, not surprisingly, circles back around to  _oh_ and  _fuck_  and  _no_  before Lauren finally puts him out of his misery, though not in the way he'd have expected.

"Can I come in?"

Um... well…

Theo's a bit too dumbstruck (and still stuck on vacillating back and forth between  _hot_  and that  _other_  thing) to really use his  _words_ , so he just steps back, making room for her to pass.

He considers not shutting the door, so at least there might be witnesses, but then there might be  _witnesses_  and Theo thinks he'd prefer the whole neighborhood remember him as the strapping and studly dad down the block, not the quivering mass of ' _I'm sorry_ ' that he's sure he's about to become.

Lauren takes a look around the foyer, her glance lingering just a bit too long on the one painting by the stairs and yeah, Theo knew buying  _that_  and hanging it  _there_  (her favorite and in the spot she'd always  _imagined_  it going, someday) was probably not his best choice but, in his defense, he didn't think she'd ever actually  _see_  it. Hell, he's still not  _sure_  she actually is.

He was out by the pool. And the deck was wet and slippery. And he totally could've slipped and fell, banging his head and, right now, he's slowly drowning and all of this is a weird death-lusion and soon he'll wake up somewhere very  _warm_  and perfectly  _deserved_.

He's not sure that wouldn't be  _better_.

"I'd guess you weren't really expecting me," Lauren says and, try as he might, Theo can't find even a hint of snark in her voice - she sounds almost  _plaintive_  - and that's actually worrisome, and so  _not_  her.

Not that he knows what's  _not_  her anymore. He hasn't in a while. Like  _five years_  kind of a while and it's so fucking  _odd_  how it feels like just  _yesterday_.

He can only hope it doesn't feel that way for  _her_  cause, you know,  _fresh_  pain and all.

Theo shrugs, which seems to be about the best he can manage. He  _wasn't_  expecting her. He wasn't (as noted) expecting anyone except, maybe, Steve. He thought that knock knock  _knock_  might have been a(nother) delivery. Maybe some (more) clothes or, perhaps, that blender she's been raving about (and yes, ' _she'_  is how he thinks of his wife right now, like he can't remember her  _name_.) Or maybe it was some more of those toys she's been ordering.

And, it should  _also_  be noted, that by 'toys', he means  _toys_. Like for a kid. Not, you know…  _toys_.

She ( _Lisa_ ) (her  _name_ is Lisa) doesn't order  _those_  and no, that's totally  _not_  one of the things he's missed over the years. (Lie) (again.) Not that, you know, Lauren ever  _ordered_  toys. She would just borrow them from Reagan and yes, that is as  _extra_ dirty as it sounds but now, with all of that hindsight that comes with age and time and living with a wife ( _Lisa_ ) (for fuck's sake) whose idea of kinky is doing it with the lights  _on_ , Theo's come to think of a little bit of… dirt… as a good thing.

It's just a thing he tries not to think about too often and, by 'too often', he means like  _at all_ , cause there are some things better off left in the past. Choices and memories and choices and people and did he mention  _choices_  cause he should have, especially since he knows that  _he_ 's the one who made  _all of those_  and he's OK with that, really he is.

As long as he doesn't think about it too much.

Which, you know, is usually kinda easy. But then, usually, one of those choices - the  _only_  one that fucking  _matters_  - isn't staring at him like she's trying to see right into his soul and OK, he's probably exaggerating that a bit.

A  _tiny_  bit.

"I didn't think… I never planned…" Lauren shakes her head and turns away, her eyes finding that painting again. "Is that the original?" she asks and he nods. "Thought so. The colors are brighter than the one... we had."

We. They. Had, as in together, as in their home, as in the place that was  _theirs_. So, you know,  _that_  one.

It hung in their hall. Upstairs. On the way from the half bath to the master bedroom and Lauren always swore that when (never  _if_ ) she found the original - and not some very  _good_  but not quite  _right_  copy - she'd hang it right downstairs, right by the door.

"Where everyone can see it," she  _said_.

Theo tries not to think about what she did with it - that very good but not quite  _right_ , all kinds of  _wrong_ , in fact, copy - on her way out that last day. It's best, he's come to think, not to dwell on the flames (and yes, that's  _literal_ ) (as in  _up in them_ ) (as in right out on the front fucking  _yard_.) In fact, he tries not to think of that day much at all.

And yes,  _tries_  is the operative word.

"It looks good," she  _says_ , somehow without a hint of bitterness or anger and oh, this is so going to end  _badly_ , isn't it? "So do you," she  _lies,_ but he still feels a swell of pride and yeah, he sucks in his gut (a four pack now instead of his usual six) just a little bit. "I'm sorry," Lauren says - and isn't that supposed to be  _his_ line? - it all suddenly clicking with her just how ridiculously awkward and weird and  _insane_  it is for them to be standing here like this. "This is… I don't know why… I should go."

She probably  _should_  cause, well, this  _is_ weird to the  _weirdest_ , but she doesn't move and Theo doesn't either, but he does finally find his voice, so that's a  _step_.

"Want a drink?"

For a second (the  _second_  longest  _second_  of his life), he thinks she's gonna say no, but then she nods, quickly, and follows him into the kitchen. He gets to fishing for beer in the fridge - it's way in the back cause Lisa doesn't drink - and Lauren just stands there, awkwardly, leaning against the island, her hands resting on top of it and then down at her sides and then back on top again and Theo thinks he should be relieved that she is, apparently, as nervous as he is.

Somehow, it's less than reassuring.

Even less reassuring is the way she downs the beer he hands her in one fell swoop (all that's missing is her sister and Reagan - mostly Reagan - chanting 'chug, chug chug') and lets out a long breath when she's done.

He thinks about offering her another one. But not very hard. He remembers drunk Lauren - the angry version, not the  _horny_  one (not that either would be good  _right now_ ) - just a bit too well.

"He loves me," she says and talk about your non sequiturs and your out of nowheres and your 'I seriously thought they'd have had this all settled by nows'. "Glenn," she adds, as if Theo didn't  _know_. "He loves me and I…" She shakes her head and taps her fingers against the side of the bottle, hunting for the words. "And I blame you," she finally says and, well…

Talk about your 'what the fucks'.

_And_  your 'not surprising  _at alls_ '.

Theo's pretty sure she's not saying that she blames him for Glenn loving her, cause, well, if that's anyone's  _fault_ , it's totally  _hers_. And, you know,  _Glenn's_. And definitely not his. Not  _at_

_all_.

How could it be? It's not like he did anything to push them together. Or to make it so that a 'them' is even a possibility. Or expect that anything would happen after the divorce.

_I think we both know the last thing Lauren's going to be is alone._

OK, so maybe it's a little bit on him, but Glenn was already in love with her and it isn't like Theo told him he should be or that he was OK with it or gave him permission or some shit like that.

Not  _really_. Not in  _those_  words. And he certainly didn't  _hope_  they'd find their way to each other cause he didn't want Lauren to be  _alone_  for the rest of her life just because he'd… changed.

His  _mind_.

He'd changed his mind and yeah, it sucked and yeah, it hurt her and  _yeah_ , the whole catch me cheating cause it will hurt  _less_  plan was somewhat… ill-advised (to put it  _mildly_ ) but he  _meant well_  and yes, he knows all about the road to hell and  _exactly_  what it's paved with.

Stones. A whole fucking bunch of them and every single one reads 'he meant well' but, in the end, it worked out, right? For all of them?

Right?

Stupid fucking question, Theo, cause if it all worked out for all of them, would Lauren be here, in your kitchen, drinking your beer, and staring at you like she's not sure if she wishes you dead or naked?

(Oh, and cut the wishful thinking cause, really, it's more like 'dead' or 'slightly less than dead but, at least, in massive amounts of pain and, if there's any naked involved, it's just so she can get a better shot when she kicks you in the balls.')

(Just so we're  _clear_.)

"He's waiting for me," Lauren says, snapping Theo back to  _now_  - and out of the dead and just a bit less than dead and absolutely not naked - and then she pauses, her fingers slowing against the glass of the bottle. "No… he's not  _waiting_ ," she says. "He's been  _waiting_  for me. And he's waited. And  _waited_."

Theo knows. Oh, how he  _knows_. He wonders if Lauren even realizes just how  _long_  Glenn's waited.

Did she see it, he wonders. When she was still…  _his_  (and don't get started on any of that love isn't ownership  _bullshit_  cause you know what the fuck he  _means_ ) did she notice Glenn, lingering in the background (copyright K. Ashcroft.) Theo likes to think that their marriage and her love for  _him_  was enough to blind her. He  _likes_  to think that, back then, both Lauren's heart and her mind were so otherwise  _occupied_  that Glenn was never anything more than Reagan's bro, a guy she knew - tangentially, sorta, a family member with a dashed line on the tree - and that even when, eventually, he was more than that, when he became her friend and her confidant and they had to work together, spending hour upon hour upon  _weeks_  in such  _close quarters_ …

Oh, who is he kidding?

He  _likes_ to think Lauren didn't realize Glenn was falling and then had fallen and then was so hopelessly  _in_  that it was impossible  _not_  to see it, and that she never thought - not  _once_  - that maybe she had some of those same feelings. He likes to think that, he fucking  _loves_  to.

But, he doesn't. Cause if there's one thing Theo's not?

It's stupid.

Or blind. Or deaf. Or so oblivious he could give high school Karma a run for her money.

So, you know  _four_  things. All of which his  _not_  being means he knows all too well that Lauren's been aware, right from the start.

"I don't know if I'd call it waiting," he says, so very casually ignoring the whole blaming him bit, cause he's sure they'll get back to it (he's not  _wrong_.) "It's not like Glenn always  _expected_  we would go belly up if he just  _waited_  long enough."

Sometimes -  _most_  times - when he thinks back on it, Theo wishes it  _had_  been something like that. It might make him feel a little bit better about all of it, like maybe he was less to blame.

And sometimes? Like  _all_  the times?

He knows that's utter  _bullshit_. He's  _completely_ to blame.

"I know  _that_ ," Lauren says. There's just a hint (like the  _tiniest_  one) of 'duh', of 'no shit', of 'of course  _he_  wasn't cause  _he's_  not an  _asshole_ ' running under her words. Or maybe that's just Theo's imagination. " _Glenn's_  not  _that_  kind of  _man_."

Yeah.  _Not_  his imagination.

You might think that years of practice in dealing with every conceivable variation of the Lauren Cooper 'just about to be pissed' formula might have taught Theo something about changing the equation. And you'd be right. Totally. There was a time, in fact, when no one could defuse an L.C. Anger Bomb (patent pending) like Theo could. Not Amy (cause she was, more often than not, the cause) and not Reagan (cause  _she_  was, more often than not, too amused by it) and not even Bruce (cause he was, or  _pretended_  he was, totally oblivious in that way that only someone who's so used to it that they're immune - or Karma - could be.)

But that time was  _then_  and this is  _now_  and, even if he wanted to, Theo's not sure he's still got the skills. Plus, there's that  _want to_. Or, in his case, a  _lack_  of it. Call him masochistic or guilty or just plain fucking  _dumb_ , but Theo kinda thinks that maybe he's got a detonation coming.

Again, he's not  _wrong_.

So, he does nothing and just lets her talk which, now that the seal's been broken, is surprisingly easy.

"Right now," Lauren says, "he's the kind of man who, even though I've been an utter fucking  _bitch_ , is  _still_  waiting for me." She stares down at the bottle in her hand and there's a moment when Theo thinks maybe he should have given more consideration to defusing her.

You know, since she's  _armed_.

"He's sitting in a hotel, probably at the bar," she says and no, she's totally  _not_  imagining him bellied up to the bar, his usual Jack and Coke in one hand and his cell in the other, wait wait  _waiting_  on her call. "Just waiting for me." Lauren thinks about what she said and laughs, a short 'I'm so  _stupid_ ' snort of a thing. "Not like  _that_ ," she adds though, Lord knows, if he was waiting like  _that_ , it wouldn't be the first time. "I'm supposed to meet him, so we can go over

last minute details for the rehearsal dinner," she says. Last minute details that were worked

out so  _not_  last  _minute_ , but Glenn humors her and he'll double and thruple check  _everything_

with her. "Tomorrow is my sister's wedding."

Theo hears the words - 'my sister's wedding' - and his brain hiccups just a bit. Nope, that doesn't bring back any memories. Not at all.

**Tyson** : " _This is my sister's wedding, we're talking about. If it's not beyond perfect, I will kill someone. All the someones. Every one of you someones. This is Lauren's day and she's_

_only having the one and so it needs to be perfect_."

**Holyfield:** " _What she said. Except replace sister with best friend and kill with… maim, I guess. But all the rest? What she said."_

For three weeks after the broke up, Theo flinched every time he heard a woman's voice or steps behind him or saw a swish of blonde hair swirling in the distance; he was so convinced he'd end up just like Liam.

Party Liam. Punched in the face and unconscious on the ground and everyone laughing at his humiliation Liam. Not, you know,  _dead_  Liam.

"Amy and Reagan?" Theo asks, going all innocent, pretending like he hadn't seen the full-page wedding announcement Farrah put in the paper. Or the one she posted on her website. Or on Facebook. Or on Twitter. Or the YouTube vlog she did for the station or the  _other_  YouTube vlog she did  _just for her_. "About time," he says when Lauren nods. He says it with a laugh which he immediately reconsiders. "I mean, it's -"

"About time," Lauren cuts in and they  _both_ laugh and it's the closest either of them have come to actually breathing since she knocked on the door. It's a nice moment, the kind they haven't had in years and that  _includes_  the one  _before_  the divorce, the entire three-sixty-five when Lauren felt like he was slipping away from her and Theo knew  _she_ felt it.

And knew, even then, that he actually  _was_.

But the harder she fought to hold on, the more he squirmed and fussed and worked his way loose. It was his choice and he made it and every time - every  _single time_  - he sees his son, Theo knows it was the  _right_ choice. But still…

Oh, it's that 'still' that gets him, every time, and it's that 'still' that makes him think that maybe, just maybe, this is his  _chance_ , his  _opportunity_ , his one shining moment that the universe has decided to hand him and so, as he does, he  _takes it_.

"I've missed you."

Theo squeezes his eyes shut (the way he should have done with his  _lips_ ) even before the words are out and oh, if he was thinking that was the universe's silver platter, the look on her face says it was more likely a fuse for that KABOOM he was so sure he deserved and now he's gone and lit the damn thing and it's burning.

Burning  _fast_.

He's hit a nerve and that's what  _she_  does. But now, seeing as how there's no un-lighting that fuse or un-hitting that nerve, Theo doesn't see much sense in quitting while he's ahead even

if, probably, he ought to reassess his definition of 'ahead'.

"Most of the time," he says, not even bothering to acknowledge that they're so  _not_  talking about Glenn anymore or the look on Lauren's face or the fact that all of this might have been so better said  _five fucking years ago_. "I do a pretty good job of not thinking about it."

And yes, by 'it', he 100% (or, you know,  _1,000,000,000,000%_ ) means ' _her'_. He does a pretty good job of not thinking about  _her_. There are times, he'll admit, when that's just a little easier than others. Times just like earlier this afternoon, out in the backyard, watching his boy hit a

tiny ball off a tiny tee (or, you know  _try to_ , cause he's only  _two_  and not a prodigy. Yet.) Times just like last night, when he and Lisa and Anthony snuggle on the couch, like an actual  _family,_  watching some animated movie about talking animals Theo doesn't even understand, but he  _does_ understand the sound of his son's laughter and, really, that's all he  _needs_ to get.

Those are the times. But then… well… then there's the  _other_  times.

Times like when Lauren's candidate won the election and there she was, in the background of every fucking picture in the news. Times like when he passes that coffee shop, the one on the corner of Dolls and Holliday, the only place in all of Austin that made those miniature chocolate stuffed croissants she loved so much but refused to eat when anyone was looking.

Anyone except him.

Or, times like those nights when the wife's not feeling kinky and so the lights stay off and it's so damn easy for him to get lost in the dark, in the idea (the  _memory_ ) that she's considerably tinier and a whole lot blonder and  _not_  whispering sweet nothings in his ear about putting  _another_  baby in her belly.

"But then,' Theo says (and no, he's  _not_  looking at her cause, well, he doesn't want to die just yet), "I see something or I hear something or I just find myself with five seconds of peace and there's no one else around and then…"

And then, she's  _all_  he can think about. And that day, whichever day it might be, is pretty much just fucking  _shot_  cause once he slips down into that hole, there's no digging out. He lets those words hang there (the trail off strikes again) and yeah, he knows  _exactly_  what he's doing.

_He's_ waiting.

Maybe, he thinks (dreams) (fantasizes) (wishes but not  _really_ ) Lauren'll say something like 'me too.' Or 'I know what you mean.' Or 'and then you start up with the thinking about me and, you know what? Somewhere, out there,  _I'm_ thinking about  _you_  and why,  _exactly_  are we doing all this thinking and not doing any…  _doing_?'

Maybe.

Or, you know… maybe  _not_. Maybe not at all. Cause maybe, right now, even though Theo's waiting? He's realizing one simple truth he should have already known.

Maybe ( _not_  maybe) he waited just a little too long. Like five years too long. Or, really,  _six_  years, counting that one when he was trying to figure everything out and while he was  _figuring_ , he was also  _shutting_  - as in her, as in  _out_  - and no, he doesn't need to see the look on her face to know that, he doesn't need to see the… something… in her eyes to feel that last  _final_  nail just getting hammered home in that coffin that he stuffed their marriage ( _them_ ) into.

Except… well... come to think of it - and, honestly, it's about the  _last_  thing he ever thought he'd come to think of - maybe he  _does_. Maybe, if he wants to  _be_ a family and not just ' _like_ an actual family', this is what he needs. His counselor - who was, at one point,  _their_  counselor, a tiny fact Theo knew Lauren had never shared with Amy or with Reagan or with anyone  _except_ , he's sure,  _Glenn_ \- would call it closure.

Theo doesn't really need a word for it. No fancy name or psychobabble term. That's just a bit too concrete, too much of a  _thing_ , too  _definite_. It's more of a feeling, really, more like a release, like someone tripped a pressure valve in his chest, five years worth of breaths he never took all just slipping away.

It should leave him feeling empty. He  _thinks_  it should. He's  _sure_  of it.

Except…  _again…_ he's  _wrong_  cause, in his entire life, Theo can't ever remember feeling this  _full_.

He gets it now. He gets what he's needed all this time. And what she needs that brought her to his doorstep after all these years. He walks to the end of the island, mildly surprised that Lauren isn't squirrelling away from him, and takes her hand. "Come with me?"

It's a question, not a demand and maybe that's why Lauren  _does,_ letting him lead her out of the kitchen and up the stairs and he feels her tense as they pass his door - it's not the same door or the same room or the same  _house_ , but some shit just never  _leaves_  - but then she stills again as they move right on by, down the hall, to the last door on the right.

Theo cracks the door, just a little. Just enough. He steps back and lets Lauren see, watching as her eyes adjust to the darkened room and her hand finds its way to her mouth to stifle the lightest of gasps that slips from her lips.

"His name's Anthony," Theo says. "We named him after my dad. He's two."

She's doing the math in her head - Theo can almost  _see_  the numbers rolling around - and it doesn't take her long to connect the dots that, no,  _he's_  not from… you know…  _then_.

"I met his mother about a year after we…" Theo shakes his head, not quite able to say the 'd' word, not even now, no matter how  _full_  he might be. "She's a cardiac care nurse and both her parents are dead and…" He shakes his head again, wondering what part of him thought telling  _her_ about  _her_  was even sort of a good idea. "I work from home most days," he says, "so I can spend as much time with him as I can."

Lauren leans against the door, blinking her eyes against the dark (yup) (the  _dark_ ) (that's  _totes_  why she's blinking.) "He looks just like you," she says and oh, that's what does it, finally, that's what slaps her right across the face and shakes her in her shoes, practically fucking screaming at her.

This…  _he…_ is  _why_.

The one thing she couldn't give him. The one thing that Theo swore up and down he didn't need, the very thing he promised her didn't  _matter_.

Until he changed his mind.

Any wonder she blames him?

"You tell them all it's about the cheating, don't you?" he asks and  _God_ , she's never heard his voice so soft, so quiet, a level of a whisper that only a father could manage. "That's why you haven't been with anyone else, why you've never remarried. Why you make Glenn wait."

She flinches slightly, her hand on the door - not so much that anyone else might even notice, but he's not  _anyone_  - and he knows she wants to argue, to point out that she doesn't  _make_  him wait and if he  _chooses_  to wait, well, that's not on  _her_. She's not  _responsible_.

And maybe if she just  _believed_  that.

"It's the simple explanation," Theo says, "I know. That's why I did it. Because it was easier and cleaner and yes,  _dumber_." He beats her to it, calls himself out for his own stupidity, regardless of how well-intentioned it was. "And you can use it, remind them all how you found me, in your bed, with another woman and it all makes sense and it gives you the best reason ever not to…"

Not to love.

He can't  _say_ it and, really, neither can  _she_  but the problem isn't so much that she can't  _say_  it. It's that she can't  _feel_  it. And not 'can't' like she's unable, or 'can't' like he killed it in her, so she can never love another man.

Can't like  _won't_ , like  _not again_ , like… like she  _knows_ , the logic of it is so right there, so  _obvious_ , and her  _brain_  is well fucking aware that she loves Glenn - loves him like she's never loved any other - but there's always that fucking  _can't_.

It's like a wall.

No… not a wall. A wall you can climb, a wall you can go around, a wall can have a door and a wall can have a way  _through_. It's not a wall, it's a hole and Lauren's been falling down it for five fucking years and Goddammit, it's just  _bottomless_.

But fuck all, she wants  _to climb_.

"I want  _him_ ," Lauren whispers. "I don't want to make him wait and I want…" Her gaze rolls over Anthony, this tiny little man, a perfect little bit of what she just can't ever have. "I want it  _all_ ," she says, "and I want it with Glenn and he says he's fine with it and he swears it doesn't matter, and I  _want_ to believe him."

Almost as much as she wants to love him. But the two kind of go together and it's like the one's a cork, stuck in the end of the bottle and no matter how hard she pulls, no matter how much she fights, she can't ever get it loose.

"He  _promises_ ," she says. "When he thinks I'm not listening, when I can't hear, when I'm in his arms in the middle of the night, he promises me that we can have it all." She turns, and she's not even pretending  _not_  to cry anymore. "But so did  _you_."

Yeah. He did.

And if there's anything Theo regrets even close to as much as how it ended? It's  _that._

It's how it began.

"I was sixteen," he says, and even to his ears that sounds like some weak fucking sauce of an excuse. "Sixteen and in love. And then I was  _eighteen_ and in love and then  _twenty_ and in love and… and  _you_ had it all figured out," he says, leaning against the wall. "Adoption had been the reality for you since you were twelve. You knew from fifteen that a surrogate was out, that you couldn't handle a baby that was half your husbands and none of yours."

Fourteen. She knew at  _fourteen_.

But that's kinda not the point.

"I thought it didn't matter," Theo says and it wasn't just that he  _thought_  it. It  _didn't_  matter, not to sixteen or eighteen or twenty year old him. And even the…  _next_ … him, the one who made all those well-intentioned stupid choices, even  _he_  didn't  _want_  it to matter.

But want isn't the same as does. And in the end, it  _did_  matter, it  _does_. All the proof either of them might need is sleeping right behind that door.

"I didn't want it to matter and I honestly believed that it didn't" he says. They're words he's only ever said in his own head, only to himself. And, you know, to Glenn, on that one day, so many years ago. "Right up until the moment when I realized that it did. And by then…"

It was too late. There was a finger and a ring on it and a house and a  _home_  and… fuck all… he  _loved_  her. So much. So very very much.

So very very  _very_  close to  _enough_.

"I didn't know how to tell you," Theo says and his hand is on her cheek and he's got no idea how that happened. "I didn't know how to break your heart without breaking  _you_ , without making you feel like you would always be something  _less_. Because you were never…  _are_  never...  _that_."

"So, cheating on me with some whore you barely knew was your way of  _not_  making me feel less?"

And there's that fuse. Again.

"It was stupid," he says (yeah, it  _was_.) "It was a plan, not a  _good_  plan, more like a dumb plan, such a ridiculous plan." He tries smiling, making light, tweaking the moment just a bit, enough that it's not  _a_ moment. "It was like Karma and Amy faking it level dumb," he says, "I get  _that_."

But it made sense at the time. Cheating, she could accept. Hell… cheating she would  _expect_ , it would just be her father and every woman between her mother and Farrah all over again. If he'd done  _that_  - if he  _was_  that - then it was on him, it was  _about_  him.

And not about  _her_.

"It was a no win," he says. "No matter what I did, you'd hurt. And I hope you know that I never wanted that, that it killed me to give you even one moment of pain."

Lauren says nothing cause, really, what is there for her to say? Yeah, she knows that - she  _knew_  that, even then - and that was what made it all so fucking hard to deal with, to accept.

Even  _after_  she found out the truth.

"You knew he'd tell me," she says softly, even though she wants to  _scream_ at him, wants to ball up her tiny fists and pound on his chest until his heart shatters the way  _hers_  did. "When Glenn confronted you, when he figured it all out, you knew he wouldn't keep it a secret and you still told him."

Of course Glenn wouldn't. He  _couldn't_. Just imagine if she had finally given in, if she'd stopped making him wait and just been with him, instead of just 'being' with him, and then she found out that he knew the truth and never told her.

She'd have killed him.

If, you know, the guilt hadn't done it  _first_.

"Is that why you did it?" she asks him and Theo doesn't understand the question. "Is that why you told him, so I'd find out, so I'd know what a bunch of noble sacrificing, I love you so much

that I'll rip your heart out  _this_ way instead of  _that_  way  _bullshit_  you'd been up to?"

Is it?

Theo would like to say no. But he doesn't want to lie. And saying that wasn't a  _part_ of it would be nothing  _but_ a lie.

"Or did you have buyer's remorse?" Lauren asks. She moves a step back, gently shutting the door to Anthony's room and oh, that's probably not a  _good_  sign. "You have an epiphany about how good you had it and how  _bad_  you fucked it all up?" (Again, truth in  _part_.) "Did you go and figure that, maybe, if I knew the truth, I'd come back? If, maybe, I knew that you weren't really

a cheating asshole, I'd crawl on back? Maybe  _I'd_  even beg  _you_  to forgive  _me,_ maybe I'd plead with you to take back your something… less than a woman?"

_Did modern medicine finally turn you into a_ real  _girl? Or are you still the same fucked up science project you've always been?_

What was that about some shit that never leaves?

"Or, maybe," Lauren says, "it was your fucking  _ego_. Maybe, you just couldn't live with the idea of me thinking  _that_  way about you. Lumping you in with my dad and Liam, one more  _dick_  who  _thought_ with his dick." She presses one hand against the door, steadying herself and doing her best (not nearly good  _enough_ ) not to think about what ( _who_ ) is right on the other side cause that is just one bridge too fucking  _far_.

There are, in truth, about a million things Theo  _could_  say. He's had years, after all. Years to think of excuses, of rationales for everything he did, everything he said. But even back then, even when he'd fessed up to Glenn and thought for sure she'd be busting down his door at any moment, he's never really settled on any  _one_  of them, he's never known - not  _for sure_  - what he would say to her, in this moment.

Oh, he's always known it would come, always expected that he'd bump into her on the street, stumble across her in the grocery store or sitting in some coffee shop, always when he'd least expect it (and, at least, he got  _that_  part right) but he knew he'd never be prepared. He would never know what to say. And now, standing right here, staring at her, he  _knows_  what he only  _suspected_  for all those years.

It doesn't matter.

"I did it," he says, and they're wrong about confession and the soul. "I lied. I cheated. I broke your heart and I was a lousy fucking excuse for a husband for far longer than you should have put up with." If he's thinking he's gonna win points for honesty, he's mistaken. " _And_  I changed my mind. The one promise I always should've kept, is the one I broke the worst."

It wasn't the words. It wasn't telling her that no, he didn't care about kids, it wasn't some vow he made in front of God and her sister and all the rest of them. It was never  _that_.

It was ten years ago, a night spent outside her room. She wouldn't let him in, but he wouldn't  _leave_. And that?  _That_  was the moment,  _that_  was the promise.

He fucking  _waited_.

It hits her then, like that wall it  _isn't_ , like a fucking tidal wave of everything, crashing down onto her and Lauren gets it. He made the same promise, the same one Glenn has made night after night after 'night together' and 'day apart' for the last four fucking  _years_. And she believed  _him_ , but she can't ( _won't_ ) believe  _him_ , cause, what's that saying?

Once bitten, twice no fucking chance I'm letting it happen again.

(Or, you know, something like that.)

"He's not me," Theo says and oh, how she hates that he can still  _see right through her_. It's not fucking  _fair_ , not even a little. "Glenn," he says. "isn't me. He's not a sixteen year old dumbass who didn't care what intersex meant because whatever else it meant, it meant  _you_." It sounds bad, makes him sound so  _stupid_  but, back then, it was just that  _simple_. "And he's certainly not an eighteen year old  _idiot_  who can't stop thinking that the 'long' part of 'long distance' is what's gonna be the death of him and, maybe, the best way around  _that_  is a ring and a promise that's even longer. So much longer than he can even  _see_ , let alone  _think_."

There's a part of Lauren - a  _smallish_  one - that wants to yell at him (more) and swear at him (a lot) and punch him (hard) and tell him that she  _knows_  (so fucking  _well_ ) that Glenn's not  _him_.

Except, apparently, that wouldn't be  _entirely_  the truth, now would it?

"You know why Glenn and I got to be such good friends?" Theo asks and Lauren shakes her head. She'd always assumed it had something to do with being the only two straight guys in their little crew. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," he says. "From day one, the first moment I met him, the  _second_  I saw how he looked at you… I knew. I knew that man loved you the way I  _wanted_  to,"

So…  _not_ the whole straight guy thing. Gotcha.

"Some people, Lauren, they just come into your life, you know?" Theo drops his head, trying his best (and his isn't nearly good enough either) to hide the tears he can't blink away. "They show up and you never see them coming but then… there they are. And once they are, well, you can't understand how you ever lived without them."

Yeah. Lauren knows about  _them_. She's got a few. Amy. Reagan. Farrah.

And Lucy and Shane and (God help her) Karma and even, kinda, Jack and, once upon a time, Martin and Liam ( _ugh_ ) and…

Them.

Her men. Her boys. The loves of her life. And, yeah, that's fucking  _plural_.

"But sometimes," Theo says, "they're not there for… always, you know? It's a moment, a thing you need right then. And maybe that then, maybe it lasts a while. Maybe it's a few months or maybe it's two  _years_."

Maybe that then gives you something you need, something that carries you through, maybe it's even a happiness you've never known. But then… maybe it ends. And maybe that end…

No. Not maybe. It does. It  _hurts_.

And maybe that lasts a while too.

Theo reaches out, taking her hand and looking at her,  _right at her_ , and it's like it's some kind of magic. The gray's all gone, the four pack's a sixer again, the ring on his finger is her's and not  _her's_  and he's there again, right outside  _her_  door instead of  _his_. Like he never left.

But he did.

"And when it ends," he says - and it's  _him_  again, the  _other_ him, the one that belongs to that life behind the door - "when it  _really_  ends? Maybe it's because it's time. Because you don't need  _that_  anymore. Maybe because you've found something that's … not  _better_ … something that's right, something that's a  _fit_ , something that's just for you. And maybe it takes a while, maybe it takes  _forever_  to get there."

He leans over, pressing one chaste kiss to her cheek.

"But, maybe," he whispers against her skin. "You've waited long enough."


	49. Chapter 49

_**A/N: Two left after this. If you're still out there lol :)** _

There are a lot of things Amy misses from the time before she was an adult.

And  _yes_ , she does think there was a time  _before_  that, even if she's often felt far more adult than most women her age. It makes sense, what with all of the coming out (her) and the freaking out (Karma), the tormented sister and the prodigal dad (and if that's not just a totally  _awesome_  band name, she doesn't know what is) and then the fire and the deaths and the best friend(s) raising the daughter of the dead (another band name) and, really, she's not at all sure how she  _misses_  anything from before she was an adult cause she's not sure that time ever existed.

She  _knows_  it did, like logically and all, but it seems so far from where she is now, that it's almost an entirely different life. That life… that  _girl_ … she was the one who spent all her time with Karma or thinking about Karma or wishing that she was with Karma (even before 'with' was ' _with_ '), who automatically hated every new stepfather, even if every one of them was at least a little bit better than her  _actual_  dad (because… well…  _there_ ), who wanted to run (right to Karma) and hide ( _with_  Karma) the moment she found out that there was a sister with the latest dad and dreaded every single moment without Karma and…

And fuck all… there was a lot of Karma back then and now… well…

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Well,  _now_ , there's Reagan and there's  _always_  Reagan, like every second of every day even when she's not actually, you know,  _there_  or even like now, when she's hidden behind one of those vaguely Asian looking changing screens, trying on her wedding dress (for what Amy's sure is the  _thousandth_  time and who ever said Reagan wasn't a  _total_  girl… well….)

(They'd clearly never seen her  _without the dress_ , but that's an entirely different story.)

"Last time you offered me that," Amy says, "I wasn't sure you could afford it."

Reagan pokes her head out from behind the screen. "You mean way back in my part-time DJ, part-time cater waiter, all-the-time hottest piece of ass you could ever get days?"

Amy'd like to argue but… well….

But well, there's certainly a lot of 'well' in her life lately and, let's face it, Reagan's not  _wrong_.

Not even a little.

"So," Regan says, leaning gently against the screen and Amy can make out just enough skin to know that the dress hasn't quite made it to the top yet and oh, she really shouldn't be thinking about  _that_. "Now that I'm in my successful record producer, at least for local talent, profitable local business owner and semi-independently wealthy cause my dad left me a bunch of money I didn't even know he had and oh, how that pissed off my mom days… I can probably offer you a quarter. Fifty cents, if those thoughts are… you know…."

She wiggles one eyebrow and yes, Amy  _knows_  and all those thoughts she's not supposed to be having - the rehearsal is supposed to start in like an hour - come roaring back and it's like she's sitting in Lightning's front seat, one foot resting against Reagan's thigh and evil (in a good way) intentions blinding her to everything but the woman she loves.

Yeah, she's an adult, but  _God_  can Reagan still make her feel like she's sixteen.

Amy shrugs her shoulders and forces herself to look… well ( _again)..._  anywhere but into those eyes she knows so well. "It's nothing," she says. "Nothing  _bad_. I was just thinking about all the ways things have changed, you know? Since we were kids." She can see Reagan's brow shift out of the corner of her eye and she just…  _knows_. "Yes, I  _was_  a kid at some point, I'll have you know. I wasn't always the well-adjusted and fully formed adult that…"

She trails off, the words dying on the vine cause even Amy, the queen of the not quite true and the sorta accurate but not in the  _important_ ways, can pull  _that_  off.

"It's just weird, OK?" she says, punctuating it with a poke of her tongue. "I mean, we're getting married.  _Married_. And Lauren's already been  _divorced_  and now she's all… whatevering… with your brother and Lucy's back and maybe staying and Karma's…"

There was a time - back before they were adults, you see - when ending a sentence like that, with an 'and Karma…' would have been enough to send Reagan's blood pressure skyrocketing (taking both eyebrows with it) and she would have either had a fit (or as close as she ever came to a fit, which was mostly doing household chores very  _loudly_ ) or tackled Amy on the spot and, more or less, fucked the 'and Karma…' right out of her.

Those days are, apparently, long gone cause Reagan doesn't set one foot on this side of the screen (and there's not a chore to be done) and Amy's glad of that, really she is.

(See? Still the queen of the not quite true cause she might not have any chores she needs done but… well…  _she_  could stand to be  _done_ , if you get the hint.)

(You  _so_  do.)

But now, Reagan simply waits cause she knows Amy's got something she wants to say - this whole thinking about them being kids and 'remember when'  _bullshit_  is about as transparent as she gets - and there's no point in pushing or rushing or trying to cajole it out of her cause this is Amy.

When she's ready to blow? She's  _ready_.

"And now," she says, and here comes the  _blow_ , even if that blow ends up being considerably less potent than it might have been before she was an adult. "All that is going on  _and_  my best friend is pregnant with my  _other_  best friend's baby and that would be so much less  _weird_  if one of those said best friends wasn't  _gay_."

She means  _Shane_. She  _thinks_. Though, truthfully, she  _also_  thinks Lucy might have something to say about the  _other_  said best friend and no, that's not  _just_  because she must have mentioned Karma about a hundred times on the ride back from the airport.

While texting her.

And Snapchatting her.

And tagging her in like  _seven_  in the car selfies and, really, whoever invented the fucking 3-D phone camera is someone Amy would like to see smacked (or, at the very least, taken a pic of in really bad lighting after a tear-filled car ride with prodigal dad and no, she doesn't think Lucy took those pictures just because she looked shockingly good for just having flown in, especially in comparison to  _her_.)

(Not  _just_.)

Amy sighs and settles back into her chair and yes, she's an adult and no, she's not like  _fifty_  but still, even just getting all that out exhausts her though, if she really thought about it, she'd know that exhaustion was probably less about Lauren and all her whatevering and Karma and Shane and their babying and actually a lot  _more_  about her and Reagan finally coming to the end of the 'single but in name only cause wedding' line, which has often felt like a story… no… like a  _book_ , like a fucking  _novel_  that's gone on for waaaaaaay more chapters than it probably should but she can't put it down cause she's gotta see it through to the end and yeah, that  _does_  make marrying Reagan sound much less appealing than it actually is, but fuck all, she's  _tired_.

Adulting is hard fucking work, you know.

"You know?" The sound of Reagan's voice snaps her back fully awake (not as fully as, say, if Reagan actually came out from behind the screen, but still…) and Amy glances up. "You know about Shane and Karma?"

There's a part of Amy, a small part… oh, who is she  _kidding_ … it's a fucking  _huge_  part, like almost three-quarters of the size of the 'I  _love_  doughnuts' part of her, that burns a candle of satisfaction at the shock and surprise and plain old ' _holy shit_ ' she hears in Reagan's voice. It's nice, she thinks, for once, to be the one doing the surprising instead of it being the other way round.

"Is that really such a shock?" she asks even though she knows full  _fucking well_  that it is. She knows a secret. A secret about Karma. A secret about Karma that could - possibly - be a giant massive untakebackable fucking  _mistake_  and she hasn't said a word.

Non adult Amy wouldn't have lasted five minutes with that.

Hell… six  _months_  ago Amy wouldn't have lasted five minutes.

"I am observant, you know," she says (though clearly not  _that_  observant as she has yet to notice that Reagan's shifted position and that - clearly - the dress hasn't made it all the way to the  _bottom_ yet, either.) "I pick up on things and I pay attention and I  _notice_."

Like right now, for instance. She's totally noticing the look Reagan's giving her. The 'you should have quit while you were  _ahead_  cause now I know you're full of it and you're going to tell me, like  _right now_ ' look.

"I  _do_ ," Amy stresses, both of them smiling (just a little) at the irony of her choosing those two words. "Like, for example, I totally  _noticed_  when Shane got  _waaaaaay_  too hammered at your bachelorette party and talked even  _more_  way too loud in my ear the whole ride home and, you know… might have mentioned something about Karma and a bun he had 'a-bakin' in her oven."

His words. Not hers.

So never ever ever  _ever_  hers.

And so, OK, maybe Amy doesn't  _notice_  quite as much as she claims - though, once Shane had actually  _said_  it, she did  _see_  it and oh,  _God_ , how had she ever  _missed_  it - but, still, she's kept her mouth shut and her business has been well minded and she hasn't once even  _thought_  of taking Karma by the shoulders and shaking her and asking (demanding) ( _pleading)_ with her in all kinds of 'what the  _fuck_ are you thinking' and 'how did this happen' and 'oh,  _shit_ , don't you really  _tell_  me  _how_ ' ways.

And if  _that_  doesn't say adulting, Amy doesn't know what does.

"You've known since my party and you haven't said anything?" Reagan's eyes are as wide as her brows are high (Amy occasionally wonders what it must be like to be so identified with one body part) (especially when there are so many  _other_  parts  _worth_  identifying.) She takes a half step out from behind the screen - oh, and would you  _look_ , that dress isn't really making it to the middle, either - and cocks her head to the side. "Who are you and what have you done with my Shrimps?"

Amy rolls her eyes and resists - barely - the urge to comment on what her Shrimps would like to do  _to her_ , but only (and it really is  _only_ ) because her phone buzzes in her lap. It's the message she's been waiting for (did she forget to mention  _that_ ) but now that it's here…

(Now that  _they're_  here…)

"You know what I remember?" she asks her wife-to-be, still staring down at her phone. "We were silly, once. All of us, not just Karma." Well… mostly Karma, but the point stands. "The biggest worries we had were so…  _ridiculous_ , you know? She'd worry that we wouldn't ever be popular, and I'd worry that we  _would_. She'd wonder if she'd ever meet a boy…"

"And you'd worry that she would," Reagan finishes, but without a trace - not even a  _smidgen_  - of the bitterness of jealousy she might once have.

Amy nods. "Guess I never thought that boy might be my sister," she says. "Which would have been sorta extra weird since, you know,  _girl_. And, at the time,  _Lauren_."

They both bite back a laugh (Amy's is more of a snort) at the very thought. Cause, you know,  _really_? Karma and Lauren?  _Larma_?

Who would ever be  _that_  crazy?

But Amy  _does_  remember those silly times and all Karma's cares about being popular and liked and boys and being liked  _by_  boys and, sometimes, it's hard for her to forget  _that_  girl and know the  _woman_  her best friend is now. Just like, sometimes, it's hard for her to forget the girl  _she_  was, the one who didn't know her place - even before she knew she was…  _her_  - the one who always secretly wondered (and worried) that she might not ever  _find_ a place or a group or a someone that made her feel even half as safe and comfortable as Karma did.

Sometimes though -  _most_  times, at least most of the not life-changing, holy  _shit_  times - Amy knows that girl… well… she left the building right about the same time she sat on a roof and said 'let's be lesbians' and though that (and how  _literally_  she took it) might have lit the fuse of some of the most explosive and terrifying - and sometimes  _awesome -_ moments of her life?

Well… one look at Reagan - in  _or_  out of that dress - is all it takes for Amy to know that she'd do it all again. Every. Single. Bit.

Of course, it doesn't hurt (like  _at all_ ) that the view right now is mostly  _out_  of the dress.

"You're not supposed to see me like this," Reagan says though her words might carry a little more weight if she was making any move to cover up (the dress) or duck behind the screen or  _do_ anything to  _hide_  anything from her fiancee's eyes. "It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding."

Amy leans back in her chair - one eye flicking almost involuntarily to the door and the  _lock_  - that message forgotten for the moment. She's 100% purposefully ignoring the fact that, apparently,  _she's_  'the groom' cause, really, she probably is, even if her sister (both of them) and her mother and her… Karma… finally talked her  _out_  of wearing a suit for the ceremony.

(For the record, Reagan was all for it, at least after Amy modeled it for her.)

(Read: modeled, as in wore the suit jacket with nothing on under it and just the pants, but those might have gotten a little torn - accidentally - when Amy, or… you know…  _someone_  was trying to get them off.)

Instead of thinking about that, or about the message, Amy is choosing to focus on the sight of her wife to be in (sort of) that dress (or parts of it) and no, she isn't thinking  _at all_  about just how quickly she could change 'sort of' to 'not at all' and if she could only remember  _for sure_  if she locked the door.

And if you read 'for sure' as anything other than 'it really doesn't matter cause she can press Reagan up against the door to keep it shut' or 'at all' as anything  _other_  than 'she's thinking of that and nothing  _but_  that  _except_  where she can lay the dress so nothing happens to it during their… fun… because a single wrinkle or a bit of lace out of place and Lauren will rearrange her  _face_?

You clearly haven't been paying attention.

Amy's phone buzzes again in her lap. "Do you need to get that?" Reagan asks, still not moving or, at least, not moving  _away_. She  _is_  moving - closer - but slowly, like one purposeful step at a time and Amy can't help it, her one track mind is already slipping back to that day in the Hester hallway, watching Reagan coming toward her ( _for_  her) and  _God_ , is it really possible that older does equal hotter cause, seriously?

_Damn._

Just…  _damn_.

She shakes her head - speech drifted somewhere beyond her the moment Reagan took that first step and that dress slipped just a little more - even though, really, she  _does_  need to take it, or else risk ruining the surprise she's spent months planning. She wasn't even sure she was going to make it back here in time, what with getting Lucy from the airport and then having to get Lauren - after a frantic call that said she needed a ride and she needed it  _now_  and no, she wasn't going to explain what she was doing at  _Theo's_  or why she wanted to be dropped at the hotel instead of the church - but she asked Jack to hurry and, for once, he did as she wished.

And so, yeah, when her phone buzzes  _again_ , she should really get it. That would be the adult thing to do. And that was how this all got started, right? Her being an adult and doing all the adult things?

You know, like the very  _adult_  things she'd like to do with Reagan right now. The adult things that get more and more appealing with each slow and deliberate (and less clothed) step that Reagan takes toward her. Those things are adulting too, right? Amy likes to think that they are because they spend  _a lot_  of time… adulting…like that. Sometimes it's just a kiss, a quick and fleeting bit of a moment.

And sometimes that moment is like three or four or  _eight_   _hours_  long, when it's just them, alone behind closed doors - or, sometimes, out on the porch at the back of their house, though that's only when it's really really  _really_  dark and they've made very sure to shut off those motion lights cause  _that's_  a mistake you only make  _once_.

Though, in fairness to Amy, it's sort of… difficult (she was  _thinking_  'hard', but those jokes just write themselves, so…) to remember mistakes or moments or messages with Reagan and like 60% of her dress settling down on her lap, a leg on each side of her and oh, she's kinda, well, trapped now and yes, that word does seem a little… wrong… considering she'd gladly stay right there,  _just like that_  (or, you know, with maybe 50% less dress) for like the rest of her life.

If her phone would just  _stop_.

Reagan reaches a hand down between her legs (not like  _that_ ) (into Amy's lap) ( _still_  not like  _that_ ) deftly plucking her fiancee's phone right out of her fingers. "Seriously, Shrimps. I know you're the groom and all and I know you've got shit to do, but who can't wait five damn min…"

She trails off - as if  _that_  ever ends well for Amy - at the sight of the name on the caller ID, eyes darting back and forth between the phone and the blonde's face, confusion sending her brows skyward at a somewhat alarming angle.

"I can explain," Amy says and she really  _can_ , not that that's all that soothing cause, let's face it, no good conversation  _ever_  starts with those three words. "It's a surprise," she says, "and until yesterday, I wasn't sure I could pull it off, so I didn't want to say anything, not even to you."

They long ago swore that there'd be no secrets, that there would never be anything they kept from each other. Hell, Reagan won't even let her wrap up Christmas presents anymore. And  _that_  rule had - a very long time ago - come with one very very  _very_  specific amendment.

Secrets were forbidden. Secrets about  _Karma_?

'Nuff said, right?

Amy just hopes this can be the exception cause, really, the last thing she needs is a pissed off bride. And not  _just_ cause that would lead to a pissed off Lauren.

And, really, it wasn't that Amy didn't think Reagan would understand or even that she'd be  _too_  mad. They were long since past  _that_  (she thinks). And it wasn't like  _she_  hadn't been keeping the mama of all Karma related secrets, lately, though Amy knew  _far_  better than to try and use  _that_  argument. It wasn't the secret that worried Amy so much, more the idea of telling Reagan about it and  _then_ having t fall apart and having to tell her that she couldn't actually pull it off.

She knew Reagan would see right through whatever bullshit lines she fed her about it all being OK and it was a longshot anyway and it didn't matter, not to her, not  _really_.

Because it  _did_. It mattered. A fucking  _lot_. Because it…  _she_ … mattered.  _Matters_.

To Karma.

And  _that_  was the worrisome part. Because this? This isn't a bridesmaid's gift, this is  _so_  not the lockets she got Lucy and Lauren with the pictures of the three of them. It's not even the key to the motorcycle parked out back of Planter's that Reagan got Glenn. It used to be Martin's and she had it fixed up for him, so it's not  _too_  much better than Amy's gifts.

At least  _some_  of them. Cause, again, this isn't a gift.

This is  _love_.

"I don't understand this," Reagan says, though Amy suspects that she's already got an idea and maybe that's why she doesn't sound mad (though she does sound like she's reserving the right to change  _that_ ) which is a far cry better than some of the reactions Amy was expecting. "Why is  _she_  calling you?"

There's a simple explanation. But, if you thought Amy was going to go for simple?

Remember that bit about not paying attention?

Amy shifts in the chair, slowly guiding Reagan off her and onto her feet. "Cover up," she says, nodding at… well… at the  _lack_  of covering up going on.

Reagan eyes her and there's just enough of a glint of amusement in her eyes that Amy thinks her secret might not have screwed anything up just yet. "You haven't said  _that_  to me since the summer we spent at Nana's house."

If it's possible for anyone to blush with  _every_  drop of blood in their body, then Amy does. "I  _had_  to," she says. "You remember the rule. 'It's  _my_ house, so  _I_  don't knock.'"

And she  _didn't_.

It was three months of no knocking and three months of Reagan (and somehow it was  _always_  Reagan) diving for her shirt or her pants or a bedsheet - or, that one time when it was the keys to the handcuffs - as Nana announced her entrance with a loud ' _I'm coming in_ ' and, of course, who can forget the time Nana took  _those_  words (minus the 'in') (but you probably figured  _that_ ) right out of Reagan's mouth.

Reagan smirks, but she does as asked and collects her robe from behind the screen, wrapping it around herself as Amy takes her hand and guides her to the window. She tugs one curtain to the side and nods down at the parking lot in front of the church. "They got here a bit earlier than I expected," she says. "I figured they'd meet us at Planter's, but… well… leave it to  _that_  family to always fuck up my plans."

Amy nudges Reagan to the window and watches as she looks down, her eyes widening and oh, wow, she didn't know eyebrows could do  _that_. "How… when…" She looks back at Amy and out to the lot again. "How did you do this?"

How?

With a lot of begging. And a lot of pleading. A fair amount of threatening. One weekend when she was supposed to be camping with Jack - as if  _that_  would ever happen - and instead spent two days in Dallas, making her case. And then, in the end?

" _I_ didn't," Amy says, with a nod at the lot, at the young girl standing nervously next to the far too big to be unnoticed (because of course the word 'incognito' would be totally fucking Greek to the  _Bookers_ ). " _She_ did."

She feels Reagan's hand slip into hers as they stare out the window, watching as the not nearly as small as either of them remembers Emma Booker glances up and, spotting them, waves with a big, happy, toothy grin.

Amy hears Reagan's breath catch and she knows the feeling. It hit her the first time too.

Emma's got her father's smile.


	50. Chapter 50

**A/N: Two to go.**

So this, Amy thinks, is what it's like to be loved.

So, yeah, OK, she knows what  _that's_  like. Ten years with Reagan means she's pretty much got that feeling on lock. If there's one thing Amy can say for her fiancee it's that she's totally got the romance thing  _down._

Flowers for no reason? Just a bouquet of sunflowers the size  _of_  the sun, waiting on their kitchen table when Amy staggers in after a long and often frustrating day at work? Check.

(Amy never thought she'd be the kind of woman who'd like that sort of thing, with all it's cheese and all it's… flowery-ness. But she does. She  _so_  does.)

A text message in the middle of the day - another of those incredibly busy days that she knows Reagan's spending in the studio, recording that annoying little Bieber wannabe who's somehow got the idea that saggy pants are still a thing - that she somehow always manages to send right when Amy needs it most, when she's  _thisclose_  to cracking and the only thing that keeps her in one piece is those three little words?

( _I'm never far.)_

_(_ Yes, she knows that's  _technically_  four words - she can  _count_  - but that's so  _not_  the point.)

So… check. Again.

And then there are those nights in bed (or on the couch) (or the kitchen table) (or, that one time, in the garage, bent over the hood of her car before she'd even had time to get inside and thank  _God_  she wore a skirt that day) that were all about her, those moments when she swore Reagan needed her like she needed air to breathe and she takes so long and it's so intense that Amy's only choice is to push her away.

Eventually.

Like, you know,  _in the morning_. Or when she can't hold herself up anymore and she's about to slide right off the hood. Whichever comes first. (Amy.) ( _Always_  Amy.) (Pun 100,000,000,000% intended.)

So, check. Again. (And on  _those_  nights?) (Check.) (And check.) (And check.) (And  _check_.)

(And you get the point.)

Still this is… different.

This is all of them together - family and friends and family friends (and Jack) - everyone in the same place and they're all laughing and smiling and having a good time and genuinely, Amy thinks, enjoying each other's company and there hasn't even been a single punch thrown.

Not yet, anyway. The night is young.

They're all there and they're all having a hell of a time (or they're all way better at faking it than she  _ever_  was) and it's all just for her. Well… for  _them_  - her and Reagan - but it's really the for 'her' bit Amy can't quite wrap her head around. It doesn't matter how hard she tries or how old she gets (cause twenty-six is  _ancient_ , you know) this… she never quite gets it, she never quite expects it.

You can take the sixteen-year-old loner (except for Karma) out of the girl but you can't… well…

You  _can't_ take the sixteen-year-old loner (except for Karma) (and then Shane) (and eventually Lauren) (and, you know,  _Reagan_ ) out of the girl cause, well, she  _is_  the girl and, in some ways, she's always  _gonna_  be the girl, which means that yes, it's dawning on her as she stands next to their booth in Planter's and watches her nearest and dearest (and Jack) that this is what it's like to be loved.

And  _God_ , can she not wait until it's over.

"If you want to sneak out the back and head for the hills, I promise I won't tell."

Karma's voice damn near scares Amy right out of her dress, not unlike Reagan's hands did a bit earlier, right  _after_ they got done stashing the tiny Booker - and her not so tiny grandmother - in a back room and right  _before_  they headed to the church and no, Amy didn't feel like a total sinner walking between the pews with the taste of Reagan still lingering on her lips.

(And tongue. And fingers. And her thigh. And… well…)

(It might take less time to list all the places she  _wasn't_  and Amy still marvels at just how quickly they got… all  _that…_ done. Masters of efficiency. That's them.)

(Practice makes perfect and they  _love_  to practice.)

"Is it that obvious," she asks Karma, trying not to act like she's noticed the glass of champagne in her best friend's hand and isn't worrying that Karma's doing something stupid and see? You really  _can't_  take the girl out of the… well…  _her_. Still worrying about Karma even when she's not done anything too very Karma in a while. Like, you know, years.

Unless you count the spawn of Harvey she's got incubating in there and oh, first? Ewwww. And, second? That's not really fair. Amy doesn't think them having a baby is stupid at all. Possibly insane, but not  _stupid_.

Karma laughs, the glass shaking in her hand. "Amy, I've known you since you were old enough to hate things like this which, probably, was like immediately after leaving the womb." She takes a quick peek out at the room and Amy can't help noticing the way her eyes linger (as in  _stop_ ) at Jack's table.

The one he's sharing with his  _other_  daughter.

"She's moving back you know," Amy says, watching as her best friend's eyes go wide and nope, she doesn't say it  _just_  so she can change the subject, but hey, Karma's short attention span has been saving her ass for  _years_. "She told me when we were riding back from the airport. She's coming back to Austin."

There's this moment when everything happens so fast that Amy can barely process it all, when Karma blinks - like a  _thousand_  times - and then stares down at the glass in her one hand while the other one almost unconsciously goes to her belly and then she's turning this odd shade of green, like fresh dolla dolla bills, and lurching toward the table, almost diving headfirst into one side of the booth.

And see,  _this_  is why Amy hates parties.

(Yeah. Cause that's the  _only_  reason.)

Somehow, Amy doesn't panic (much.) "Are you OK?" she asks, slipping down into the booth as discreetly as she can. The last thing either of them needs is Lucy spotting Karma's distress and hustling over to help cause, she's pretty sure, that would make all that green on the inside come rushing on out pretty damn quick. There's a second when Amy's  _other_  fear - but, what about the  _baby_  - is almost too much for her and she thinks that maybe she should go find Reagan (not like  _she_  knows bubkus about baby stuff, but she's always Amy's  _first_  call) or maybe her mom or Mrs. Ashcroft or, you know,  _anyone else_ , anyone who might be even a tiny bit better equipped (as in  _at all_ ) to handle… this.

Cause there's more than one potential "this" here and Amy knows it because, with Karma, there is never just  _one_  potential "this". Karma is the "this" queen and she always has been and  _that_  was  _before_  pregnancy and hormones and Harvey DNA oozing around in her system.

And did Amy mention 'ewwww'? Cause, you know,  _ewwww_.

So, for instance, right now, Karma's "this" might be the baby or, for  _another_  instance, "this" might just be "oh  _God_ , Lucy's coming home and she's coming home for me and I'mma have to break her heart" or,  _also,_  "this" might be "Lucy's coming home and I'mma have to leave a sock on the doorknob so Shane knows not to come in, and do you think preggers belly is gonna be a turnoff for her, so I should get all the sexing in now  _before_  I'm, you know,  _fat?"_

Amy isn't at all sure which of those thises this one is and she's even less sure which of those is  _worse._

(The last one.) (Definitely the  _last_  one.)

She feels helpless and if there's one thing Amy hates, it's feeling helpless. That was the story of her life for way too long. "Can I do something?" she asks though, honestly, she thinks she might have already done  _enough_. "I'll get you some water. Or seltzer. That's good for upset stomach, right?" Karma manages a low groans that Amy's totally taking that as a 'yes' and she's about to bolt for the bar (and no, the fact that it's at the  _other end_  of the restaurant has  _nothing_  to do with it) when Karma suddenly latches onto her hand.

And, apparently, pregnancy gives you some fucking  _guns_  cause Karma's grip is like steel and it only takes a couple of seconds before Amy starts fearing for her fingers.

(Reagan would be pissed if she lost any of those  _before_  the honeymoon.)

"OK," she says, settling down gently into the booth, taking a hold of Karma's hand with her free one and it's  _meant_  as a comforting gesture and not  _just_  as a way to subtly pry her fingers loose from the jaws of death. "What can I do for you, Karms? Crackers? Cheese? Bread?"

When in doubt? Food.

Karma glares at her and Amy gets the hint. When in doubt, food for  _her_. Not everyone cures an upset tummy by, you know,  _filling it_. "OK, so that's a no on the cheese and bread. A cool cloth? Um… Tylenol? Advil?" She's about a half a breath from offering her a valium (she has some in her purse and no, she didn't  _expect_  to need them tonight, but if Glenn has taught her anything over the years, it's to always be prepared.)

(Which is  _totally_  why she always has a spare pair of underwear in Reagan's truck.) (And in her office.) (And in the recording studio, hidden under the bass drum.)

Amy winces as Karma's grip gets tighter. She's not as green, which is good, but what's not so good is that she's about three shades too  _pale_  to be considered  _any_  color and Amy's got less than no idea what to do here, so she goes with the only option she can think of.

"Should I get Shane?"

If she was looking to get some color back in Karma's cheeks, then Amy did her job. And did it  _well_  cause Karma shifts from green to pale to  _holy shit she's dead_  to  _holy shit, she's not dead, she's on fire_  in the span of a heartbeat and it's only when she can practically feel the heat from her best friend's cheeks (and that sounded so less dirty in her head) that Amy realizes what she said.

And just in case she still hadn't… "Shane?" Karma's trying to yell or, at the very least, sound aghast and upset and confused, but it comes out more like a strangled cry that could almost, Amy imagines, be what she sounds like when she's -

Yeah.

_No_.

Not going  _there_. Not now. Not ever.

(Not even in those weird drunken roleplays when Reagan likes to dress up and wear costumes, and she only wore that red wig  _once_  and never ever  _ever_  again.)

"Why?" Karma asks, struggling to sit up and failing - Amy's gotta wonder, if she's having this much difficulty with the moving  _now_ , what's it gonna be like in a few months - before giving up and just leaning back to stare at the ceiling which is, ironically, how she got in this mess in the first place. "Why would I want  _Shane_?"

Now there's a question Amy's asked herself more than once over the years, usually when he's outed her or said the wrong thing to the wrong person or stuck his nose in something that wasn't even kinda his business or, you know, mentioned  _scissoring_.

(Which is even more fun than he seems to think it is, but she's never telling him  _that_.)

"I… um… just...cause… um… he's not… um… "

_There are no... boyfriends… around me… right now._

What was that about not being able to take the sixteen-year-old out of the woman?

"You know, don't you?" Karma asks, apparently not realizing that having both hands pressing gently against her belly and breathing in  _that_ way - hiss hiss whoo hiss hiss whoo - would be enough of a clue for  _anyone_  that there's something…  _amiss_. "Dammit, Reagan swore that she wouldn't tell you."

"She didn't," Amy says, taking a quick glance over her shoulder, thinking (hoping) that maybe the mere mention of her name might be just enough Potter-esque magic to make her fiancee appear, but no. She's still off putting the final touches on Glenn's gift. "Karma, I've known you since you were old enough to  _love_ things like this, so since while you were still  _in the womb_."

Maybe not her best choice of words, all things considered.

"I may not be the most perceptive person ever," Amy rolls on. "But even I can pick up on clues, even I can see when something's off with you, even I can tell when my  _best friend in the world_  -"

"Shane said something, didn't he?"

Amy sighs and drops her head. "He's so loud when he's drunk," she says. "But, in his defense, he did say you were gonna be the hottest and most fashionable baby mama in the  _history_ of the baby mama."

Karma tilts her head up, one eye open and Amy knows she's busted. "He so  _did not_ , but thanks anyway," she says, "at least  _someone_  knows you're supposed to humor the pregnant chick and her delusions."

Yeah, like Amy hasn't spent a  _lifetime_  humoring Karma's delusions.

Karma shuffles her way up in the booth, pulling one leg beneath her and leaning her elbows on the table. "Sorry," she says, "I wasn't  _trying_  to ruin your party."

Amy bites her lip and counts it down in her head. Three… two… one…

"It's been  _ten years_ , Amy, are you ever gonna let  _that_  go?" Karma doesn't look at her - she's still staring at the table and will continue to do so until it agrees to stop moving. "It was just one ill-advised kiss -"

"And three very well-advised punches," Amy says, running a comforting hand over the other woman's shoulder. "And a near breakup of my relationship -"

"Emphasis on the  _near_ ," Karma says. She reaches up and catches Amy's hand in hers, lacing their fingers together and not once does the thought that  _that_  might be anything more than it is cross her mind. "I mean, you are  _marrying_  her tomorrow, you know. So, if anything, you should probably be thanking me."

She says it with a laugh - which she almost instantly regrets cause the  _shakes_  - but Amy doesn't join in. Instead she scoots closer in the booth, wrapping her arm around Karma's shoulder and resting her head against all that red.

"Thank you," she whispers and there's something to it, something in her voice that Karma hasn't heard in… well…  _years_ , that makes her turn (slowly) (and not without a small groan) (and she is so gonna  _punch_  Shane later) (and like every day for the next six months) and look at Amy.

"I was kidding," she says and she was. Really.

Mostly.

Amy nods. "I know," she says, "but see, here's the thing… all this? This party and these people and this night? None of it happens without you."

Karma would like to argue, she really would. She's even got some very reasonable, very salient points. Like, for instance, while she might have had a little something to do with it - faking it was her plan, after all - there's a way (as in  _way_ ) more compelling case to be made that none of this happens without  _Reagan._

Reamy was forever after all. Endgame. OTP. You name it, they were it. Karma couldn't have stopped it even if she'd wanted to.

(She tried, after all.)

"I know we've had our ups and our downs," Amy says. She knows that  _well_. "And I know that I tease you about the party a bit."

"A bit?" Karma asks. "A  _bit?_ You bought Liam and I matching boxing gloves for my eighteenth birthday and spent the next month promoting the 'Fight of the Century!'"

Reamy vs. Kiam. Steel Cage. Two teams walk in.

Only the lesbians walk out.

"In my defense, that was Reagan's idea," Amy says. "And  _also_ in my defense, I think you'll like your bridesmaid's gift a bit better." Karma smiles ( _gifts!_ ) but then lays her head back down on the table as another wave of Harvausea washes over her.

And yes, she's ship-naming her urge to vomit now. Humor the pregnant chick, remember?

Amy glances out at the crowd, catching her sister's (the DNA one) eye and nodding once. Lucy scoots out from Jack's table and disappears back toward the kitchen. Amy turns back to Karma, relieved to see she's not paying any attention to her (story of her life,  _again_ ). "Do you remember when my da… Jack left?"

Karma nods, which only serves to make her head bump against the table and she sits up too fast and oh, she's not just gonna  _punch_  Shane. There's gonna be some kicking involved too.

And he better be happy with  _just_  the one kid, cause she can't promise he'll be capable of having any more after  _that_.

"When he left, I almost did," Amy says. Karma turns to look at her, but Amy's… well… she's off, somewhere else right then. A look her best friend's seen a few times over the years. "I  _wanted_  to," she says. "I wanted to hide under my bed or in my closet and never come out."

Three… two… one…

"And what a loss that would have been to the gay ladies of the world."

Even Harvausea can't keep Karma  _all the way_  down.

Amy snorts and shakes her head. "Yeah… one of them, at least," she says. "But I didn't. There was no hiding and there was no closet - not  _intentionally_ , anyway - and there was no quitting, no giving up on… everything." She turns to Karma and brushes her hair back from her face. "And that's because there  _was_  you."

Over Karma's shoulder, Amy can see the kitchen door. Nothing yet. Which is good, really, as she's got just a little bit left to say.

"Before there was Lauren and before there was Shane and before there was… my  _mom_ ," she says, "even before there was Reagan. There was you, Karma. There was always you."

Karma lets her head hang, trying her best not to let the tears show cause she knows - after all these years, she  _knows_  - if Amy sees her cry, then she's gonna cry and if she sees Amy cry, it will look like the forty days and nights of rain in here in like five minutes  _flat_.

Amy pulls her close, one eye on the door. "There was you and your stupid plans. There was you and your never ending quest for popularity. There was you and your obsession with that Booker boy." Karma pops her head up, a pout on her lips that makes Amy smirk. "And there was you, underneath all that, always being the best friend anyone could have ever hoped or asked for and not for the Shanes or the Liams or the Tommys. Just for me."

OK. Somebody call Noah. We're gonna need an ark up in this bitch.

"I know you've held back with Lucy, Karma," Amy says, squeezing Karma's hand in hers, stifling the head shake and the protests before they even start. "I know you've worried yourself half to death thinking I'd have a problem with it or I'd think you were substituting her for me or that  _she_  would think you were."

Can't have the original? Grab the knock off. Can't get a Louis Vuitton? Grab the Luis Vutton.

Ten years ago, Amy wouldn't have thought that was what Karma was doing. She would have  _known_. But, as she's been reminded all day long?

This isn't ten years ago.

"And I know you're terrified of what she's gonna say when she finds out about the baby," Amy says and, really, she doesn't know, but this is Karma she's talking about. She  _knows_. "But my sister… and yeah, that still sounds  _weird_ … she loves you. She loves you in all the ways that I wanted to, but I never really could, because  _that_  you wasn't for me."

The kitchen door swings open and Amy spots Lucy slipping out, one of Emma's still tiny (but not as tiny as they used to be cause things  _change_ ) hands clasped in hers. They start for the booth and Amy slides back, putting just a little distance between her and Karma.

How many stories of her life is she gonna run into tonight?

"There was a time, Karma, when I never wanted to let you go. I wanted to keep all of you, all to myself," Amy says. "But that time was then and this is a  _new_  time. A new chapter." She leans in, kissing Karma gently on the forehead, as Lucy and Emma reach the booth, standing silently behind her. "And tomorrow, I marry the love of my life. I  _officially_  start my new family."

She looks over Karma's shoulder, into the eyes of the sister she didn't know she had but now can't imagine being without. And she knows it's right and she know's it's not really goodbye.

But  _God_ , it feels like it.

"And tonight, Karma," she says, gently turning her best friend around. "Tonight, you start yours."

Amy had played this moment out in her head a thousand times, always imagining being there for all of it, for the second Karma would see the daughter (DNA be damned) she thought she'd lost and the love she'd always wanted to find, standing right there, together, as they should be.

But imagination and plans… well... they're funny things and they never work out quite the way you think and when that moment came, when Karma saw Emma and Lucy and they were the  _only_  two she  _could_ see?

Yeah, Amy couldn't… she just  _couldn't_.

So, she slipped silently from the booth, ignoring the sobs from behind her, the way Karma called for Shane, the way she said those three little words sixteen-year-old Amy would have  _killed_  for.

She made it about five feet.

And then there she was, like she was conjured up by some Potter-esque magic. And Amy wasn't at all surprised. "You're here," she said, falling into those arms she knew by heart.

"Of course I am," Reagan said. " _You're_  here. And wherever you are..."

Amy knew the rest.

Story of her life.


	51. Chapter 51

**_A/N: One more to go. And then it's done._ **

For most of the first ten years they've been together, Reagan's been the one to say things to Amy first. And, for most of the same first ten years, Amy hasn't minded a bit.

There was, for example, that 'I love you", all those years ago, in the Hester hallway. When Amy thinks about that  _now_  - and she  _has_ , like  _every damn day_ for  _weeks_ , while she's worked on her vows which have gone from being seven pages to seven words and then back again more times that Karma's reconsidered her sexuality - it seems so very very far. Like wrap around the world twice or three times and still have some room to go kinda  _far_.

She's heard people talk about things seeming like they were a lifetime ago. Her sister - the tiny blonde one - for instance, talks about Theo like that.

"I remember when I actually thought he was a decent, upstanding human being and not a total cocknozzle," she says (and always when Amy's taking a drink and the thought of a cock and a nozzle - or even  _just_  the one of them - is enough to make her gag or blow rum and coke out her nose and this is why she avoids drinking around Lauren as much as possible.) "But that seems like a lifetime ago."

Her  _other_  sister, the one who loves Karma (unlike the tiny blonde) (who doesn't  _love_  her, not in  _that_  way) (but does, in  _her own_  way, even if she hates to admit it) says it too.

"When I first came here," Lucy says to her, "I didn't think we'd ever get along. I thought you'd always hate me and feel like dad chose me and that I must somehow be better than you and that I'd always keep finding ways to put my foot in my mouth and say the wrong things." But, she says, "that feels like a lifetime ago."

Yeah. A lifetime. Feels that way to Amy too. Sure does.  _Totes_.

Even Reagan says it.

" _God_ , I remember when you just got down there and licked and licked and  _licked_ , you were like a madwoman and, don't get me wrong, you were still  _awesome_ , but it was all about enthusiasm and energy and how bad you wanted it and so absolutely  _not_  about, you know,  _skill_."

Don't get her  _wrong_.

Amy never does. And she never - as in, you know,  _always_  - feels the need to remind Reagan that,  _now_ , it's  _all_  skill. Well… skill combined with years and years and  _years_  of practice (all the practice) and so, when Reagan  _finishes_  (the  _thought_ ) it's always…

"Oh… but that…  _oh_ … feels like a lifetime ago and oh…  _fuck_... Shimps…"

(And then Amy always feels the need to remind her  _again_.)

(And again.) (And again.) (And… well… you get the point.)

Still, for all the people who say it to her (or  _about_ her, in one way or another), Amy'd never really thought about it until now, until she's realized that she's going to have to do something that feels like she  _hasn't_  done it for… well… a lifetime.

Until she set about trying to figure out exactly how  _she's_  going to say something  _first_.

"Reagan's making me go first," she told Lauren. "With our vows, I mean. She says that I'm very difficult to understand when I try to talk while I'm crying and that  _her_  vows are going to make me sob like a tiny baby, so I  _have_  to go first. So I can get mine out."

Lauren suspected this was true.

She also suspected that it was  _equally_  true that it didn't matter  _what_  Reagan said - she could've read the Planter's menu backwards, if she wanted - Amy would still end up a sobbing, hiccuping mess.

Lauren  _also_  also suspected that what was even  _more_  equally true (if that's, you know,  _possible_ ) was that Reagan was talking a whole  _mess_  of shit cause, really, she hadn't written word fucking  _one_  of her vows yet cause every time she tried, she froze, staring at the pen and paper and then ended up doodling some not half bad sketches of Amy (less than fully dressed), muttering softly under her breath about drawing her like "your French girls."

OK… maybe it was  _more_  than  _suspected_ and maybe she'd actually  _seen_  it, once or twice (by the second time she'd learned not to look at the sketches) but she was  _positive_  that Reagan would have something by the day of the wedding, so she didn't rat her out to Amy.

Lauren's days of being a snitch were… well…

A lifetime ago.

That whole idea - a  _lifetime_  - seems almost silly to Amy now. It's only been ten years and that's hardly a lifetime, even if Reagan does,  _sometimes_ , look at it that way. It surprises Amy just how much Reagan likes to look back - even if, she's willing to admit, looking ahead (at marriage and a house and, eventually  _kids_ ) can be just a bit terrifying - but as they've drawn closer and closer to the big day, Amy's found her fiancee looking far more often in the rearview.

There were all the times, Reagan mentions, when it was just them. "You  _do_  remember all those, right?" she asks and  _of course_  Amy does. Those were some of the best times of her life, when it was just her and Reagan and their little bubble.

Or when it was just them  _and_  Lauren.

Or them and Lauren  _and_ Theo. Pre cock-nozzle Theo.

Or them and Lauren and Theo  _and_  Shane.  _And_ , for a bit, Duke.

Amy doesn't know what happened to him. He just sort of… disappeared. Like he was there one day and the next there was some God-like voice over announcing that the role of Shane Harvey's love interest was now being played by Roger.

Or Raul. Or Ronde. (Shane had a distinct 'R' phase.) (Amy could  _appreciate_  that.) Not that any of the R's lasted, not that  _anyone_  did, not until Noah and he didn't really last either - even if the two of them keep trying to make it happen, but it's kinda like 'fetch', as in it just ain't  _gonna_  - and honestly, if someone had suggested to Amy ten years ago that Shane's one true life  _partner_  and impending baby mama, was Karma?

She's not sure sixteen-year-old Amy would have  _seen_ seventeen. The shock might have killed her. Either that or she would have laughed herself to death. Cause, really, Shane and  _Karma_?

You'd have to be absolutely  _batshit insane_  to think  _that_  up.

"I liked those times," Reagan always says, interrupting Amy's trip down memories of Shane's lost loves lane. "They were good times, weren't they?"

They were. Even if Amy thinks that they've had better times (she's maybe a bit partial to any times that have involved them alone - or mostly alone - and sans clothes) or even times that might've had a bit more meaning (like their first time) (or the night they got engaged) (or their first time  _after_  they got engaged) but yeah, she's fond of those times too.

In a lot of ways, they were the best one month, three weeks, and four days of her life. All the days she and Reagan had together B.K.

Before Karma.

But still, the times A.K. were good too, maybe even better. Even if, sometimes, Amy feels like they lived all those days a bit on fast-forward, like some days it almost feels like they skipped a decade and  _that_  was one more thing Reagan said  _first_.

"Here's to us," she said over dinner in a very busy Planter's one night (but not their anniversary because they don't celebrate  _that_ ) (not in public, at least.) "Here's to our  _first_ ten years together and to our  _next_  ten."

It caught Amy a bit off guard, surprised her just a little - which it probably shouldn't have since she knows Reagan  _loves_  to surprise her, so she should have been prepared - how suddenly her fiancee was ready to look ahead.

And,  _also_ , that whole  _first_  ten  _thing_.

It was a bit… weird (not  _quite_  the  _right_  word, but close enough, Amy thinks)... to be able to think of the  _first_  ten years and it was even  _weirder_  (still not quite right) to be able to say it, fully and all out loud and for  _reals_  and weirder still, to be able to talk about having  _another_ ten.

Yeah, she gets it, she's  _marrying_  Reagan and she's with her  _for life_  and she wouldn't have it any other way. But the first time Reagan says it - and Amy's stunned to realize that it  _is_ , in fact, the first time  _either_  of them have - it hits her.

There's been ten years. And there's going to be another ten years. And then  _another_  ten years and then another ten after that and after that and after that and after that and  _after that_.

"That would make me ninety-six," Amy said, after doing the 'after  _that_ ' math in her head and, yes, she actually did it  _right_. Her eyes sorta glazed over and she grew quiet but it was when she pushed her burger away that Reagan got a bit nervous.

"Shrimps? What's wrong?"

Math. That was what was wrong (as it  _always_  is.) " _Another_  ten would make me ninety-six, which would make you almost one  _hundred_ ," she said.

When they were sixteen and eighteen the age difference hadn't mattered a whit. When they were nineteen and twenty-one, it had only mattered that Reagan could get drunk,  _legally_.

But ninety- _six_  and ninety- _eight?_

_That's_ a difference. Like, a  _lifetime_  of one.

"Don't get me wrong," Amy said - not that Reagan had a  _clue_ , so getting her wrong was kind of impossible or, really, the  _only_  option - "even then, I'm still gonna love you.  _Always_. But..."

Reagan waited patiently for her to finish.

(As  _if_.) (Reagan does very little patiently and almost none of  _that_  has anything to do with Amy.)

(Almost.) (Though, truthfully, does  _taking your time_  - aka teasing the  _fuck_  out of Amy - really count as being patient?)

But she did try, mostly cause she thought she knew what was coming, she was like 98.9 percent sure she knew what was bugging Amy.

Ninety-eight was close to a hundred and hundred was… well… pushing their luck, a bit. It was bucking the odds, especially given their families. Even Nana only made it to ninety-seven and she was the toughest woman either of them ever knew.

But, tough or not, even Nana couldn't beat time.

"I know, Shrimps," Reagan said, reaching across the table and taking Amy's hand (her patience had already run out.) "I know what you're worried about and I promise," she said. "I promise to not die before you. We'll go together, like in  _The Notebook_."

She didn't specify which of them was the Allie and which was the Noah cause, well, that was just  _obvious_  (Reagan equals Noah,  _duh_ ) and when Amy blinked twice and cocked her head to the side, Reagan prepared herself for the inevitable mockery that not only had she seen (and read) (and read again) (and seen  _again_ , as in the night before)  _The Notebook_ , but she was, in fact, comparing them to it.

"Oh," Amy said, and Reagan steeled herself for the barbs to come. "That wasn't it." Reagan arched a questioning brow that only got higher as she watched Amy slink backwards, almost hiding in her side of the booth, as if she knew she was about to be in trouble. Like,  _all of it_. "I mean, I appreciate the idea and the sentiment and I'm totally down with that, but I was… um… well… see…"

_See_ , it wasn't about death or Reagan's oddly  _girlie_  taste in literature - if you could count Nicky Sparks as  _that_  - or even her oddly  _straight_  obsession with all things Gosling. Nope, it wasn't about any of that at all.

"Don't get me wrong," Amy said, "I want you to live to be a hundred. Or two or even  _three_ ," and yes, overcompensation thy name  _is_  Raudenfeld. "But, you know, when you hit ninety-eight, it's gonna… um… hit back."

Hit. Back.

It's gonna  _hit back_.

"I mean you'll still be hot," Amy said, quickly flipping their hands over to hold onto Reagan's before she could pull away. "At least to me. But, you know, time and…  _gravity…_ "

_If_ Amy hadn't been smirking and  _if_ she hadn't tried (desperately) to talk Reagan into staying home that night instead of going out to eat ("we can do  _that_  much  _better_  here") and if, well…

If Reagan hadn't been… you know…  _Reagan_ , then maybe she wouldn't have stood up from the booth - still holding Amy's hand - and tugged her to her feet, leading her across the dining room and over to the door marked 'Employees Only' (owners  _do_  count) and through the door, down a hall and around a corner to a dark little alcove, far from prying eyes. And then, if she wasn't her and they weren't  _them_ , Reagan most certainly wouldn't have pressed Amy's back up against the wall and whispered, smirking up at her even as she slowly slipped to her knees.

"Maybe it's time I showed you what an old lady can really do."

And that was one more thing Amy didn't mind hearing first. In fact, she rather  _enjoyed_  it. In all of those ten years that came before (and the seventy-five that came after), she enjoyed almost everything Reagan ever said.

_Except,_ you know, the four little words she whispered to her the night of the rehearsal dinner.

"I have a plan."

* * *

The first time Reagan ever said those four little words to her, Amy ended up being a horse's ass.

It was their second Halloween together - the first since the original party what got posted on FB and what damn near drove Karma nutty ( _nuttier_ ) - and it was the first time that the two of them, and Lauren and Theo and Shane and Duke (who was still there) (he didn't vanish till around the New Year)  _and_ Lucy and Karma (who were not  _an_  'and', just yet) had all agreed to… well…

Try.

They were gonna try and they were gonna hang and they were just gonna see how it went and, hopefully, no one was going to die or get punched or end up making out with the wrong person in a dark corner because of some 'everyone's in a costume and I got confused' mistake.

Which was, of course, what led to the plan.

"I have a plan," Reagan said. "We'll go as a horse."

If they'd actually been talking about the party or costumes or, really,  _talking_  about  _anything_  - and that might have been  _hard_ , given that Amy's lips (and tongue) (and face, in general) were sort of  _busy_  at that particular moment… she was devouring a double bacon doughnut burger and yeah, that was double the meat  _and_  double the cheese  _and_  double the bacon and you totally thought it was gonna be double the  _Reagan_ , didn't you? - then the horse comment might have made some sense.

Some.

Not a lot. Cause… well…  _horse_.

It was, Reagan reasoned, the perfect costume. First, it would be adorable, them coming in one of those 'couples costumes'. (Amy suspected she might have been emphasizing the 'couple' bit a little more than necessary for a certain redhead.) (She wasn't wrong.) Also, sharing an outfit meant more time together. "And you know you love that," Reagan said.

_She_ wasn't wrong either.

Best of all, it meant a minimum of actual, you know,  _conversation_  (with said redhead) (or  _about_  said redhead) (or about the ways Reagan had seen said redhead looking at Lucy, of late) which meant less possibility that their 'trying' would end up  _trying_  Reagan's  _patience_.

Remember, that thing she didn't have much of?

It all made perfect sense and, really, Amy didn't have any  _serious_  objections, other than totally objecting to going  _at all_  - "It's a party," she said, "we don't do well with those, as a rule" - and so, it was agreed, they would go as a horse.

And it wasn't until later, as in the day of the party, as in the hour before when they were getting ready and Amy was still feeling the buzz of having spent the last  _two_  hours 'getting ready', that she realized one of them was going to be the front.

And the other wasn't.

Which is how those four little words turned Amy into a horse's ass.

And oh, if that had been the only time…

* * *

The second, third, and  _fourth_  times Reagan said those words, Amy  _also_  ended up being a horse's ass. Although, it was only  _metaphorically_  those times.

All of them - every single fucking one of them - were Reagan's attempts to get her dad to start dating again. And every time ( _every_  time), Amy tried to tell her it was a bad idea and that there was literally no chance (none) that it would work out the way she planned it and she even got Karma to explain the evils of plans to her but that only ended up with the first ever Rarma team up and yes, that went just about as well as you can imagine and so, finally, after the fourth time Amy found herself holding the bag (literally, in this case) (a bag of groceries she'd bought so she and Martin could cook dinner for his date, who turned out to be married  _and_  gay  _and_  a  _dude_  and the reason Amy took away Reagan's Craigslist privileges), she'd finally had enough.

"Here," she said, handing Reagan her father's phone. "Tinder. Make Martin a profile and make sure you have access to it so you can check his choices cause we really don't want a repeat of that Iris woman, and between the two of you, you can't possibly fuck up swiping left or right."

As it turned out, they  _could_. And they  _did_. And that how was Martin ended up dating Lorna, the woman with seven cats which led to a never ending series of "I just can't get away from women who like pussies" jokes from him and a never ending series of snorts from everyone  _not_  named Amy.

So, one can understand why Amy might have had some… hesitation (that's so the  _polite_  way of putting it) (fear) (panic) ('which kind of ass am I gonna be  _this_  time) and concerns when Reagan whispered those four little words again, the night of their rehearsal dinner.

It was right after Amy got done crying - and for once, crying over Karma wasn't a  _bad_  thing - and she and Reagan had slipped off, disappearing into the crowd and, right up until Reagan said the magic words, Amy'd thought there was going to a totes different kind of magic.

And then she saw the motorcycle and now we're caught up.

"Rea, babe… why is your dad's motorcycle on the loading dock?"

Reagan gives her a look - 'cause it wouldn't fit in the  _kitchen_ ' that look  _screams_  - and shakes her head. "Did you forget already? It's Glenn's gift."

Oh. Right. It's Glenn's gift. That totally explains it all.

(Seventy-five years of this. That's what she's got to look forward to.)

(And she  _does_. But sometimes…)

"I  _know_  it's his gift," Amy says. "I was there when Lauren suggested it, remember?"

Reagan falters for a moment, this look swooping across her face - it's her worried, her 'oh, shit, maybe this isn't such a good idea after all', her 'how did I know  _kittylova72_  was  _really_  how many cats she had' look - but then it's gone as fast as it arrived.

But not fast enough that Amy doesn't notice and oh, see, this is  _exactly_  why they have a no solo planning rule.

For  _Reagan_.

Amy's plans - when she bothers to have one and doesn't just fly by the seat of her pants - are often brilliant and usually useful and  _always_  involve absolutely zero animal asses of any kind.

Take, for example, her plan to kill two birds with one stone.

_Bird A_ : One stressed out, I can't think of what to get Glenn for his best man/maid of honor/ "the only relative I've got that I'd be even remotely willing to have standing next to me the altar" gift fiancee.

_Bird B_ : One nagging, annoying, stress-inducing, "oh my,  _God_ , she didn't put this much effort into her  _own_  wedding" sister/wedding planner.\

It was Amy's idea to send them off together, to Dallas, on a quest for that perfect gift. And when she "suggested" it Reagan had nodded along and gone with it. And that had little or nothing to do with just wanting to spend some time with her best friend - who happened to be an  _excellent_ shopper - and everything to do with Amy's plan.

The one that said to ask in a way that Reagan just  _couldn't_  resist.

"Please," Amy said. "Please just take the little blonde tornado with you, she'll be such a help."

(And though it  _sounded_  as if she was suggesting Lauren could help Reagan, really she meant that Lauren's  _absence_  - one whole day without seating charts and flower diagrams and those folders, oh the  _folders_  - would help Amy not  _lose her damn mind._ )

How brilliant was the plan? So brilliant that it left nothing to chance and, when she asked, Amy was as naked as the day she was born and that hadn't hurt her chances at all.

It hadn't hurt even more that Reagan had been naked too  _and_ bent over the kitchen table and had a few 'please's' of her own and that Amy had, gratefully (and quite skillfully) granted each of those requests and, when Reagan could stand up (or speak) (or  _breathe_ ) again, she'd agreed to take Lauren along.

Two birds, one Glenn shaped stone and Amy'd pulled it off.

For half an hour.

That was how long they were gone - thirty  _minutes_  - and when they'd pulled back into the drive and hopped from the car  _and_  Amy'd made sure neither of them was hurt…

"Why are you back? You couldn't have even made it  _to_  Dallas yet, much less back and I don't see a gift and that was like the whole point was to get Glenn's gift and you don't have a gift but you're back and why are you back?"

Reagan had laughed and Lauren… well… she saw right through it ( _Amy_ ) and knew exactly why her sister was so concerned about their being back but she didn't really care cause she'd done the impossible.

She'd thought of the perfect gift.

The same gift that was now sitting on their loading dock. Martin's motorcycle, the one he'd spent years tinkering on but never gotten quite right (and every single one of them, from Amy to Glenn to Karma and right one through to Lucy, Jack, and Farrah, could so  _identify_ ) and the same one that Reagan had locked up in storage after the funeral, when neither she nor Glenn could stand to look at it.

"It says you've healed," Lauren said when she suggested it, "and that he's here, with you, and not just on your wedding day. Every day."

You'll hear him, she said. He'll be there in every one of those hiccups of the engine when Glenn takes a corner too tight and in all the slow rattling starts when it's been cold outside, and in each and every one of those soft little squeaks when the brakes stutter on rain slicked roads.

Even Amy couldn't argue with that.

"So that's your plan?" she asks her wife-to-be with no small amount of hope in her voice. "To call Glenn out here and give him his gift?"

Simple. Easy. Appropriate and, best of all, not at all likely to make Amy into an ass of any kind.

"Not exactly," Reagan says and never have two words killed Amy's hope faster (though Karma's OG "I love you too, Amy" - which was  _four_ words - came close) and she's about to ask what the plan is  _exactly_  but she's cut off by Glenn, slipping out the back door.

"I got your text," he says to his sister, "what so important that you needed me out..."

He trails off as he catches sight of the bike and Amy thinks that, maybe, this is the one plan Reagan's had that won't blow up in their ( _her_ ) face.

And then Lauren comes out of that same door, sporting that same determined look she had on that morning all those years ago, when she confessed all to Vashti, and Amy feels her stomach sink cause now this is trending  _way_  too close to that OG Karma moment and yeah, someone's definitely gonna look like an ass when this is done.

But for once, she doesn't think it'll be her, no matter how much she wishes it might be.

* * *

It's fortunate that Reagan's still holding the keys to the bike cause the moment Glenn sees Lauren, he looks as if he'd like nothing more than to ride off into the sunset.

Or, you know,  _anywhere_  that isn't here and, by 'here', that would mean ' _her_ '.

Amy starts to say something - not that she's got any idea  _what_  - but Reagan silently shakes her head and her fiancee gets it. It's not her place. It's not her fight. And, just like on that Vashti morning, all she can do is be there for Lauren and hope that's enough.

"You wouldn't talk to me," Lauren says and Amy can't ever remember hearing her like this. "At the rehearsal, you wouldn't even hold my hand when we went down the aisle."

He wouldn't. And yeah, Amy had noticed - everyone did - but she'd been caught up in her own stuff and her own plan for Karma and she hadn't said anything to Lauren, hadn't even checked on her and this, she knows,  _this_  is why she's marrying Reagan and how she knows that's  _right_.

Even when she falls down on the job, Reagan's there to pick her (and her sister) (and  _her_  brother) up.

Maybe.

Jury's still out.

"I tried calling but you wouldn't pick up," Lauren says. She takes one hesitant step forward and then she flinches -  _visibly_  - when Glenn backs up. "You wouldn't answer your door at the hotel and then you had security come…"

Shit. Amy's already mentally slicing off a piece of wedding cake and prepping a 'Glenn's an ass' speech for tomorrow night.

"I'm sorry about that," Glenn says and he sounds like he actually means it. "That was… a dick move. But you wouldn't stop banging and calling and I just wanted… I  _needed_  you to go."

Make that two pieces of cake and the biggest fucking flute of champagne they've got.

Lauren nods and it's nothing but a stall, a moment to collect herself so that, maybe, the sting of  _his_  words doesn't come through in  _hers_. "I get it," she says, "and I know it's my fault and I know I was the one who…" She clutches at her purse in her hand and stares at the motorcycle. "Bike looks good," she says to Reagan. "You did a great job with the paint and the chrome and stuff."

Lauren's staring at the bike and so she doesn't see the way Glenn looks at her, but Amy does and it's enough -  _just_  - to make her reconsider. Maybe a piece and a half. And a slightly tinier champagne.

_Maybe_.

"You didn't fix the rest?" Lauren asks Reagan and she shakes her head. "That's good," Lauren says. "Sometimes the not quite… well… not everything that's not perfect is broken, you know?"

She turns to go and Amy wants to reach out, but something holds her back and one day, years from now - seventy-nine of them, to be  _precise_ , when her time is done - she'll realize what that something was.

It wasn't  _just_ the bike making them feel like Martin was there with them.

"The rest?" Glenn asks and Lauren freezes and Reagan nods. She runs it down for him, bit by bit, all the things she didn't change. The hiccups and the starts and the squeaks. "It'll still do the wheez on hills, too?" he asks and Reagan nods, again.

"But only when you start on one," Lauren says. "You have to ease the clutch into it." She sees the look Amy's giving her and shrugs. "Martin talked about it," she says. "A lot."

"Yeah, he did," Glenn says. "To  _me_." He glances at the bike and then back at her and it's so damn obvious, it's almost funny. All of those times his dad talked to him, Lauren was always around cause, well, she was  _always_  around. "You remember that?"

"Your father… he had this way of making anything interesting," Lauren says, still facing the door, like she's ready to run, unless she finds a reason not to. " _Even_  motorcycles," she laughs and it only sounds a  _little_ forced. "And being around you and your dad, it always reminded me, of me and my mom when I was a kid." She blinks back tears, for her mom or for what she thinks she's losing, even she'll never be sure. "Whenever you two were together, and I'd be there, it always felt… it felt like…"

Glenn steps forward, slowly and even though Amy can't blame him for hesitating, she still wants to haul off and smack him, yelling at him to hurry his ass the fuck  _up_.

"It felt like what?" he asks her and he doesn't know - like  _at all_  - what she's going to say or if it'll be something that makes a difference or if such a thing even exists.

But he knows he has to try.

Lauren shakes her head, like she can't… she  _just can't_  do it again, she just can't put herself out there again, even though she knows she's deserved it every time he's pulled back and she's so well aware that it's all her fault and she's the one who's kept him waiting.

_maybe you've waited long enough_

And even if she doesn't think she can… well… she  _does_.

"Family," she says. "It felt like family and it's funny, really. I mean, tomorrow your sister is going to marry mine and then it'll be all official like, we'll  _be family_." There's no blinking back the tears now, not hers or  _his_. "But see, that's just it. I don't need their rings or their vows or their piece of paper for all that," she says, turning to look at him, like it might be the last time. "I don't need any of it cause you've  _always_  been  _my_ family and I'm sorry I never said it and I'm sorry I fought it and I'm sorry that I finally tell you I love you when you're already gone and -"

She doesn't get the rest out - which is good, since she doesn't know what the rest might have been anyway - because then he's kissing her and he's holding her and their sisters are there, and they see it all and Lauren doesn't give even the tiniest of fucks cause he's  _kissing_  her.

She'd let the whole damn world watch if it meant he'd never stop doing that.

But then he does. And there's this moment - the very split second his lips leave hers - when Lauren thinks that wasn't a first kiss (not that it  _was_  their first, but it  _was_ , in all the important ways) but a  _last_  kiss but then she sees the smile on his face, feels his rough but soft touch against her cheek and she  _knows_.

And just in case she doesn't? Well… Glenn makes sure to tell her.

"You're so damn dense, you know that, Cooper?" he says and it's only that smile (and that touch) (and the way they both seem to promise so many more of each) that keeps Lauren's smart ass retort at bay. "Haven't you figured it out, yet?" he asks.

It's simple, he says. No matter how hard she pushes (and she will) and no matter how hard she fights (and she will) and no matter how…  _Lauren_  she is (and she  _is_ ), as long as he knows that she loves him?

"I'm never gone."


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied. Not the last one (for those of you still out there). Was supposed to be, but this scene got rolling and I didn't feel like having a 10k word chapter and someone asked for an update, so... 1 or 2 more.

There are days when Amy wishes she'd just stayed in bed. A box of donuts, a documentary on Netflix, a blanket to pull up over her head and hide under.

And, of course, a Reagan to snuggle up next to and, well, if shenanigans ensued from there, she can certainly think of worse ways to spend a day, and not many better.

She remembers a time, vaguely ( _God_ , she's getting  _old_ ) when the shoulda stayed in bed kind of days were the norm, when the crush of what was going on in her life made the thought of hiding out beneath a blanket fort, with just enough room for her and her beloved (the doughnuts) (she'll  _always_  have the doughnuts) damn near the most appealing thought ever. Like, for example, she remembers her Karma period - not unlike Van Gogh's 'blue period' just with more ears and less dead gingers, though there  _were_  times… - when, without threat of failing out of high school, she might well have not left her room at all.

And let's be real. That threat - failing out of  _Hester_  (she was never sure that was even possible) was  _only_  a threat because of what might come after it. A lifetime of living at home with her mom and Bruce and, as much as she loves them both  _now_?

_That_ was pre "You must be Amy's mom. I'm Reagan", so pre-yet another of the many ways in which her fiancee changed her life. Another way for the better.

That list never seems to get any shorter.

She hasn't had so many of those days lately, though that's not for lack of trying. As in  _Lauren_  trying, as in Amy's patience, as in her sister going through her "stay out of Lolo's  _way_ , cause biatch is  _cray"_  period (copyright ) (and  _thanks_  to G. Solis), as the stress of her then unresolved relationship with Glenn  _and_  the planning of a wedding that  _wasn't_ hers - but kept making her feel some kinda way about maybe never having another one that  _was -_ combined to slowly drive Lauren a bit… nutty.

And the nuttier  _Lauren_ got, the more  _allergic_ Amy got, to the point where staying in bed often did seem the safest tactic.

Except that, you know, Lauren had a key to their place (in case of emergency) (cake tasting and flower smelling and croquembouche refusing all, apparently,  _qualified_ ) and, the love of her life or not, Reagan did little or nothing to shield Amy from her sister.

"I love you Shrimps," she said, "but if you think I'm getting in Lolo's way, you're crazier than she is."

Love, apparently, does know some boundaries. And  _all_  of them are  _blonde_.

Still, save for the Lauren days (and the ride to the airport with Jack days, despite how that one turned out in the end) (and the signing off on a zillion  _and one_  official documents days because sure, it's  _legal_  for them to get married in Texas, but no one said anything about  _easy_ ) (and days when Reagan doesn't have to work and  _she_  can call in sick and they get to spend an entire day hiding together) Amy doesn't have as many shoulda stayed in bed days as she used to. In fact, more and more often, she finds herself having days when she actually  _wants_  to get  _out_  of bed.

Provided, of course, that it's at a reasonable hour and no, anything starting with a number  _under_  eight does not qualify.

Except, maybe,  _today_.

Today, she's been up since five-thirty and she keeps trying to tell herself it's all Reagan's fault. It was  _her_  idea, after all, to spend their last "single" night apart, to honor at least one of the age old wedding traditions.

Of course she had to pick  _that_  one.

"It'll be fine, Amy," she said - and  _that_ was the moment when Amy knew Reagan was serious and not just teasing cause she used her  _name_  - "we can spend one night apart. We spent a whole week apart last month when I had to go to Cali."

They did. And they survived.

And that survival had absolutely  _nothing_  to do with Amy crashing at Lauren's every night, on her couch - and by 'on her couch' she totally  _doesn't_  mean that she started there every night, before ending up (somehow)  _in_  Lauren's bed, not cuddling (that would be  _weird_ ) but just  _there_ , needing the small bit of warmth that her sister provided to even get close to sleep - and so, yes, survival for one night was definitely  _possible_.

So long as Lauren came by and slept with her, but then Reagan had to go having a plan  _and_ that plan had to actually  _work_  and so Amy knew there was no way - like in  _hell_  - Lauren would be coming by.

And at two am, when she  _still_  wasn't asleep, Amy realized - damn her fuzzy brain - that, really, since Lauren was now  _with_  Glenn, she probably was.

Coming, that is.

Just, you know, not  _by_.

Amy kinda figured that Lauren was doing much in the way of sleeping either and no, thinking  _that_  at two-oh-five in the morning did little or nothing to bring sleep to her door though it did make her just a bit jelly cause, frankly, the wrong  _Solis_ was gettin' jiggy wit the wrong one of Farrah's daughters, if you know what she's saying.

(You probably don't.) (Even Amy wasn't exactly sure.) (Rational thought left somewhere around two-oh-four and she didn't expect it back any time soon.)

In the end, she thinks she got - and this is only a guess based on the last time she looked at the clock, which was about five seconds before she tossed it across the room - maybe two hours, at most. Which is about… eight or nine or  _all_  the hours too few cause, according to the now safely on the table clock, she's getting married in  _two hours_  (she's sensing a pattern) and according to the mirror, it's gonna take all of Karma's (and maybe Lauren's) makeup magic to make all those bags under her eyes look more like a clutch and less like  _luggage_  and the simple fact that she's sitting here, in her childhood bedroom, and she's actually sorta kinda almost looking forward to letting Karma near her face with all those…  _things…_ that she keeps in her makeup bag is proof fucking positive.

This  _is_  a day she should stay in bed.

Except then she wouldn't actually get to, you know, get  _married_  and, even as irritated as she is at Reagan for making her sleep (or  _not_ ) alone, there's nothing Amy wants more than to finally get to say 'I do'.

Except -  _again_  - maybe a tiny nap. Like a twenty minute little kitty of a cat nap. She could totally do it. It's not like Farrah's here to tell her it's time to go to the -

"Amy? Sweetheart? You ready? It's time to go to the church."

She sighs and falls back onto the bed and oh, she can so  _not_   _wait_  for tonight cause if there's one thing Amy knows about her wedding night?

It's that Reagan ain't sleeping a  _wink_.

(And the  _right_ daughter will be getting jiggy and, by tonight, she guesses she'll have figured out what that  _means_  and, if she hasn't… well… they'll have  _all night_.)

(Not to mention the rest of their lives.)

Farrah pokes her head around the door and it's like a bad flashback and Amy has an almost involuntary urge to pull the duvet up to her chin to hide her nakedness, or almost nakedness, except she's fully dressed, if sweats (not the bacon ones) (those met an unfortunate fate in a dryer three or four years back) (but she is rocking the  _shrimp_ ones) counts as  _fully_.

Really, it kinda has to, cause she can't get completely ready  _here_  cause she can't wear her dress in the car cause… well… um…

It's too big.

As in poofy. As in the skirt. And the train. And the, you know,  _poofy_.

_God_ , when did she become  _that_  girl?

Probably around the time Lauren and Reagan ( _and_  Karma and Lucy and Shane, but their votes counted  _so much_  less) laid down the law and said "No" (as in  _no_ ) to the suit.

"You mind if I come in?" Farrah asks and Amy can't help laughing at the thought of how different things might have been if she'd asked that  _ten years ago_. She waves her mother in, scooting a bit to make room for her on the bed. Farrah settles down on the edge but she keeps eyeing the door and it's weird, like she's arguing with herself over making a break for it or not.

And here Amy always thought  _Jack_ was the runner.

"I… um…" Farrah's got her hands in her lap, wringing them together and Amy watches them move, twisting over and under, marveling at how - even in her sixties - Farrah's sporting fewer wrinkles than  _she_  is. Good genes or good surgeons, you be the judge.

(It's totes the genes.)

(The wrinkles  _are_. The boobs are another matter  _entirely_.)

"I just… well… I wanted…" She's almost stammering now and if she wrings her hands anymore Amy fears they might just come off. She reaches out, laying one hand gently over Farrah's and she feels her mother still. "You must think I'm crazy," Farrah says, "getting all nervous. I mean it's not like  _I'm_  getting married."

It slips out before Amy can stop it. "You wouldn't be nervous if  _you_ were," she says. "Practice makes perfect and all."

She wants to yank it back - even if she just meant it as a  _tease_  - but it was still so mean and not the kind of thing you say to your  _mother_ , especially not  _today_ , and Amy's halfway through trying to make what she thinks is an apology (fuzzy brain + big mouth is not a good combo) when she realizes that her mother isn't upset. Like,  _at all_.

No. Farrah's not mad. Farrah's  _laughing_.

OK, so it's less laugh and more snort-slash-cough-slash-giggle (and where has Amy heard  _that_  before) but then it slides right on into a full on have-to-slide-off-the-edge-of-the-bed belly laugh and it's  _contagious_ and so Farrah pulls Amy down with her until they're both on the floor, leaning against the edge of her bed for support, tears rolling down their faces.

It feels weird. It feels silly.

It feels like the sort of thing they were  _supposed_  to do when Amy was sixteen and trying to figure out which member of  _1D_  was the hottest (or, in her case, which one of  _5H_ ) (Lauren) (but not  _her_  Lauren) (though if that  _other_  Lauren  _wanted_  to be  _her_  Lauren and Reagan was down with it…)

It feels, in a word,  _good_.

Amy rests her head on her mother's shoulder and sighs. "I'm gonna miss this," she says, and yeah, she knows it's not like they get together and have laugh-filled sleepovers on the regular, but still… she's going to be  _married_. And that means off living  _her_  life and making  _her_  family and Amy still remembers how infrequently she saw Nana when she was growing up and she never wants that to be her and Farrah.

"Promise me," she says, suddenly serious. "Promise me that you and I aren't gonna turn into you and Nana, once Reagan and I get married. We'll still do Sunday dinners and then someday you'll babysit for us and spoil your grandkids rotten and get them all hopped up on sugar and then send them home so that Rea and I can curse you under our breaths and then still let you watch them the next time cause hyperactive kids is the  _least_ of what we deserve for all the times you had to catch us… well… you know."

Oh, yes. Farrah  _knows_.

Farrah knows far more than any mother should cause she  _also_  knows that even though Amy had a lock on her bedroom door for years, she apparently couldn't remember how to  _use_ it.

And Farrah knows, above all else, one simple thing.

She knows that she  _hopes_  that  _her_  daughter  _has_  daughters and they don't remember about locks either.

Still - locks or no - Farrah understands and she doesn't want to lose any of their closeness either, not when they've come so far. "I promise," she says, without any sense of irony and without even a single mention that they don't do Sunday night dinners  _now_.

Unlike her daughter, she does have a filter between brain and mouth.

Sometimes.

"It's funny that you mention Nana," she says to Amy. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about." Farrah fumbles with something just beneath the sleeve of her dress, sliding it off and into the palm of her hand. "I know you and Reagan aren't much for the traditions and all, and I'm  _fine_  with that, but…"

She reaches over and takes Amy's hand, slowly pressing the whatever it is that she took off into her daughter's palm.

"Something old and something new," she says, "something borrowed and something blue."

Amy looks down into her open hand and finds herself staring wide eyed at a tiny sterling silver and turquoise bracelet, one she knows so very well. "This was Nana's," she says. "She wore it all the time, she said it was the last thing Grandpa ever gave her. I thought she was…"

Buried with it. The trail off was meant to be finished with 'buried with it' but Amy stops herself just short.

For once, the filter engaged.

"She gave it to me," Farrah says. "Maybe three months before…" It's her turn to trail off as she runs a finger gently over the silver, as soft as if she was touching her mother's skin. "She made me promise that I'd give it to you, today, on your wedding day. She said that way she'd know it was in good hands."

Great. Just...  _great_. Thanks, Nana. As if the bags weren't bad enough, now Karma's gonna have to contend with red and puffy eyes  _too_.

Farrah sniffles a little - at least Amy's not alone in the waterworks - and goes on. "She wanted me to say 'thank you', too," she says. "She said to make sure I thanked you for introducing her to the best burger she'd ever had." Farrah laughs. "She  _insisted_ you'd know what that meant."

Amy nods and blubbers and laughs all at once, clutching the bracelet close. Tradition or not, it doesn't matter.

She's wearing it. Always.

"Your nana loved you," Farrah says,  _whispers_  really. They've never really talked about her or about… the end. Amy knows it killed Farrah, watching it happen, but her mother's never been one for dwelling.  _That's_  a skill she knows she inherited from Jack.

Try as she might, she can't quite remember a time, not even one, from her childhood when her mom and Nana seemed… close. Nana was always  _there_  - who can forget the wedding and the flask and, come to think of it, Amy realizes just how  _not_  far the 'let me drown my sorrows' apple fell from the Nana tree - and she does remember lots of visits and lots of time spent together.

But none of it that felt right. Not until…

"You changed us, you know?" Farrah says and yes, it's a question  _too_ , but not one Amy feels as if she's supposed to answer. It's rhetorical, in a way. "Your Nana and I, we were a bit distant, you know, but that was never about you. It was about me."

Amy wants to call bullshit. She almost  _needs_  to. She knows it wasn't about her, but the hell it was about Farrah. It was, as so much was for so very long, all about Jack.

"Well, it was probably more about your father," Farrah corrects and Amy's eyes dart her way, in search of a sign for just  _how_  she read her mind. "I was embarrassed and ashamed of what I'd let him do, how far I'd let it all go." Every time Amy thinks she can't feel any more anger for the man, there's one more log tossed on the just barely smoldering embers. "And my mother took it hard," Farrah adds. "She blamed herself, for not stopping me from making such a huge mistake in the first place, and for not stepping in."

_That_ , Amy knows, was just Nana being  _silly_.

If she'd interfered, it would have just pushed Farrah closer to Jack.

"That distance," Farrah says, "I always acted like it didn't matter, like I didn't care." She smiles and shakes her head. "And then she'd come for a visit or for a wedding… and I turned into a crazy woman, wanting everything  _just so_."

And Amy turned into… well… Amy. Always working that extra bit hard to make sure everything was just so…  _not_.

"You changed all that, Amy," Farrah says. She clasps one hand around her daughter's and she wishes - not for the first time - that she'd done that so much  _sooner_. "I got to see Nana with you and she was so…" Farrah clears her throat and damn, this is harder than she'd expected. "She was everything I'd ever wanted her to be. And I could've been mad, I could've hated her for not being that for  _me."_

Amy has the briefest flash of a fight with Jack, years ago, one in which Lucy's name came up far more times than it should have.

Apples and trees and all that.

"But I didn't," Farrah says, "I didn't get mad or hate her. Because I saw you. And I saw what you did with Karma and with Lucy and with Liam and, eventually, even with your father." There's this odd smile that crosses Farrah's face and it makes her look so much like Nana that Amy's heart hurts. "It's funny," she says, "I was supposed to be the parent, the teacher, and yet everything I know about forgiveness, I learned from  _you_."

And if there was ever a subject Amy never expected to be some kind of expert in…

Farrah leans back against the bed, still holding Amy's hand in hers. "I always knew, no matter the distance, that my mother loved me. She just…  _sucked_  at showing it. And that was because we were so different, her and I." She squeezes Amy's hand gently. "Kind of like you and me."

"Mom -"

Farrah holds up a hand and Amy shushes (and yes, they both  _do_  wonder why it was  _never_  that easy when she was a  _kid_.) "We  _are_  different, Amy, we always have been. And I know we made a lot of progress after you came out and when you found Reagan."

When  _they_  found Reagan, cause she changed it all for all of them, in a way. She blew things up and she tossed them on their heads and she brought out something in Amy that, really, they all needed.

Amy. She brought out  _Amy_.

"I know," Farrah says, "that we've been so much closer but…" But Amy's not even surprised that there  _is_  a but cause there  _always_ is. "But that doesn't change all that came before, you know?"

The present doesn't change the past. What happened… well… it  _happened_  and you can't change it and you can't undo it and, sometimes, it feels like all you can do is  _outlast_  it.

Amy thinks maybe they've done pretty well on that score.

Most of the time.

"I just wish that I'd been able to tell you  _then_ , like I can  _now_ ," Farrah says. "That I could tell you just how proud I am of you. Of you and of all that you are." She cups her daughter's cheek in one hand. "You, Amy, are the  _best_  thing I have ever done. By  _far_."

Amy will always wonder if it was just the moment or the room or just being there in  _their_  house, in the spot where Farrah met Reagan and their lives turned on a dime.

But, mostly, she'll just figure it was just about time.

She presses her own hand over Farrah's and hopes that her voice doesn't crack. "You know," she says, "Reagan told me something once. Something you told her about how you felt about Karma."

_Whatever other feelings I may have about that young lady, I will always be grateful for that. She was there for Amy when… when I couldn't be._

"She said that you thought Karma saved me after Jac…  _dad_ … left." Amy knows that, for some reasons she will  _never_ understand, it matters to Farrah what she calls Jack. Maybe even more than it matters to  _Jack_. "She said that you thought without Karma I'd have disappeared, that I'd have hidden in my bed and never come back out."

Farrah nods. It was true then and it's true now and no matter what else she feels about Karma, she can see  _that_. Karma pulled Amy through.

Amy scoots up onto her knees, rolling her hand over Farrah's, Nana's bracelet pressed between their palms. "Karma  _helped_ ," she says, barely managing not to laugh at how ridiculous that might have sounded, once upon a time. "But it wasn't her. It wasn't Karma that saved me, mom. It was  _you."_

She remembers the look on Farrah's face that fateful afternoon when she walked in and was greeted with a pretty spectacular view of a half naked Reagan.'

(Like there's any  _other_  kind of view of  _that_.)

And Amy remembers the look on her mother's face when she opened the front door one Saturday morning to find Jack - sober and older and with a  _daughter_  in tow - standing on her front step.

Neither of those looks comes even  _close_  to the shock on her face right now.

"Every single day," Amy says. "Every single  _moment_ , you saved me. Jack left  _us_ ," she says, "he broke  _our_  hearts and I never did a very good job, like  _at all_ , of hiding that. But you… you couldn't let it show, you couldn't dwell on it, you couldn't let anyone see it breaking you, even if that's all it did for  _years_."

Until along came a tiny blonde and her seemingly dimwitted but, ultimately,  _perfect_  father. And there will never be a single doubt in Amy's mind - or heart - that what Reagan did for her, Bruce did for her mother.

"You couldn't give into it," Amy says, "because you had  _me_." She squeezes Farrah's hand in hers, ignoring the tears she can't stop shedding. "And you  _had_  me, mom,  _always_. No matter which step was in the picture or how hard you had to work just to keep us going, you made sure I never  _ever_  wanted, not for anything."

Not that ten year old Amy - or twelve or fifteen or sixteen year old Amy, either - ever saw it that way.

But like she said. Sometimes, it's just  _about time_.

"Hell," Amy says, "you let me keep  _Karma_." They both snort at  _that_  and they sound so similar that they just can't help but do it again, only louder.

Much like her mother, Amy's got a handful of regretful wishes. Like, she wishes it hadn't taken her this long to say it or that she'd been smart enough to know it back then. But, maybe,  _this_  is her something new. A little bit of new insight or new honesty or - really - a new  _family_ , even if it's still, mostly, the  _old_  one.

What was it Lauren said?

Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's broken.

And maybe the imperfect works the best of all.

"Maybe we didn't have the traditional mother-daughter relationship," Amy says (and she can  _hear_  Farrah in her head: " _Maybe?")_ "And maybe we didn't really get it right for, you know, years. But I always knew the only reason I was even there for Karma to help was because of you. Dad left us, but mom, you  _stayed_."

Farrah ducks her head, swiping at her eyes with her hand, but Amy stays put, stays true. She hooks one finger under her mother's chin, tilting her gaze back up.

"You stayed, mom," she says, and she's only silently cursing herself a little bit for never having said it -  _any_  of it - before now. "And everything I am today? You did  _that_ , you  _helped_  me, and maybe I wouldn't have made it as  _well_  without Karma, but you could probably say that about Lauren or Shane or Reagan."

Amy shakes her head and stands, still holding her mother's hand and gently helping her to her feet, bringing Farrah to stand right alongside her.

Right where, she realized long ago, Farrah's always been.

"They all helped me and they've all be there for me," Amy says. "And so many times, I swore I'd have been lost without them. But you see,  _that's_ just the thing." She holds Farrah's hand tight in her own. "I would never have been  _truly_  lost," she says. "Because, for me, there's always a map back to where I need to be, back to safety, back to  _home_."

When Amy thinks of that map, she thinks of a wedding dress, stored away in a closet, kept there just waiting for the day when she needed to know about it. She thinks of Diet Coke, doughnuts, and an invitation to dinner. Of homemade garlic bread and spaghetti and meatballs and a blush covering Reagan's cheeks.

She thinks of trick candles.

" _You've_  always been my home," she says, "and after today, my name might change, a little." She has to admit, being able to sign 'Solis' instead of 'Raudenfeld' is a  _perk_. "And I might not ever fall asleep in this bed and never want to leave again. Sure, I'll have a new address and a new room and a different woman to stay up waiting for me when I'm out late, just to make sure I get home OK."

Farrah laughs and it's the best thing Amy's heard all day.

"But I'll always know, mom," she says, "I'll always know where my home is and I'll always know you're there. Because Karma may start her own family and so might Shane." Maybe even, you know,  _together_. "And maybe Lolo and Glenn will too. Maybe they'll find new homes, like Lucy did and maybe they'll drift or maybe…"

She thinks of Liam. Of Martin. Of those who would be there today. If they  _could_.

"Or maybe," she says, "that'll be us. Maybe Reagan's career will take off and we'll end up world travelers, never staying in one place for too long, always moving, always going." There's a bit of her - a tiny one - that likes that idea, that thinks maybe she's outgrown Austin or maybe she's just  _ready_  to. "But no matter what I do," she says, "or where I go, I'll always have that map, I'll always have  _you_."

And as Farrah pulls her into a hug - one that's just a bit longer and a bit soggier (there's tears  _everywhere_ ) than either of them is used to - and as Amy can't help but feel like she's saying a goodbye, like she's two ends of a string are just being neatly tied together, she also can't help feeling that bracelet in her hand, the cool of the metal against her skin. And she knows that maybe it's  _not_  just true for Reagan.

_Wherever you are, I'm never far._

Amy hopes Nana knows how grateful she is.

She's got a feeling she does.


End file.
